"If they had a social gospel in the days of the prodigal son, somebody
would have given him a bed and a sandwich and he never would have gone
home.

The church is a hospital for sinners, and not a museum for
saints.

The church is so subnormal that if it ever got back to the
New Testament normal it would seem to people to be
abnormal.

Who hasn't heard a Vance Havner quote? Vance Havner
was arguably the most quoted preacher of the 20th century. His sermons were
always filled with much meat for the saints, calling for revival everywhere
he preached. And the Lord used him greatly. This book contains 12 wonderful
sermons of the unique man of God.

The sermons included in this collection have
been preached in special meetings and Bible conferences over the country.
Most of them have appeared in Christian magazines and we thank the following
for permission to reprint articles: Revelation, of Philadelphia, for
"Wonderful," "Stir Up the Gift of God," "Where Is the Lord God of Elijah?"
"Where Are the Marks of the Cross?" "Nothing in His Hand," and "Jesus Christ,
the Same"; to Moody Monthly, of Chicago, for "Prophetic Doctrine and
Practical Duty"; to Western Recorder, of Louisville, Ky., for "Shields
of Brass," and to the Temple Evangelist of Fort Wayne, Indiana, for
"Why Have the Showers Been Withholden?"

The messages are written very much as spoken, with
the peculiarities which distinguish sermons from essays. No attempt has been
made to eliminate occasional repetitions of thought or expression in the
different messages. They go out with the author's desire and prayer that
primarily they may help believers along the "road to revival" and thereby
bring many unsaved to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus
Christ.

THE eighteenth chapter of First Kings sets
before us in application the road to revival. In the seventeenth chapter,
Elijah, that solitary, rugged prophet of God, broke suddenly upon the scene
to announce before King Ahab a three-year drought. Then he hid himself at
God's command by the brook Cherith. In the eighteenth chapter he shows himself
at God's command before Ahab again. It would be well if every preacher hid
first at Cherith before appearing at Carmel. Then there would be fewer failures
and more fire, falling Fire from above.

Elijah's second appearance before Ahab finds famine
in Samaria. We are living in a spiritual famine nowadays, and there is need
of a prophet from God's hiding place. There can be such a man in any age
if he will pay the price. Elijah was no superman, he was subject to like
passions as we are, but he prayed earnestly and in that he outstrips us.
He could pray down both fire and water and we need both today, fire of power
and showers of blessing. But we are all so busy hurrying hither and thither
in a great fever about nothing that we would never dream of staying awhile
at Cherith. "A waste of time," we efficient, quantity-producing Americans
would call it. So we hustle around trying to do things for God before we
have allowed

Page 10

Him to do things for us. "He who waits on God loses no time"; Elijah
needed Cherith and Paul needed Arabia and you and I had better "come apart,"
lest we do come apart and go to pieces!

Elijah encountered first of all Obadiah, the governor
of Ahab's house. Now Obadiah was a good man and feared God, but like many
another he was working with the wrong crowd. He was lined up with Ahab when
he should have taken his stand with Elijah, the separated man of God. And
he is a perfect type of thousands of Christians today who fear God at heart
but are trying to better conditions in league with the powers that be, instead
of praying for revival. Obadiah was out at Ahab's command looking for grass
when he should have been praying for rain and calling men to repent and return
to God. Sin was the trouble then as it is today, and when men turned to God
the showers fell. What a waste of time then to be out running around with
this little club and that little campaign, boosting this project and backing
this program, trying to find a little grass when the real trouble is politely
ignored! For that reason our soul loathes the Obadiah policy in our churches
trying with parties and banquets and pageants and pep meetings and performances
borrowed from the world to stir up fire that must fall from above. We grant
that sometimes a little grass may be discovered by some of these foragers,
but never was a drought broken by such pitiful expeditions. We have had enough
of the program of Ahab and Obadiah: it is time to assemble on Carmel, and
prove God by the test of Fire.

There is no more tragic sight than an Obadiah, in
the pulpit or out,

Page 11

entangled with the affairs of this world and infected with its
futile enthusiasms when he ought to be burdened for the sins of the people.
In his day, Spurgeon, crying out against ministers who attended the theatre,
said, "The fact is that many would like to unite church and stage, cards
and prayer, dancing and sacraments. If we are powerless to stem this torrent,
we can at least warn men of its existence and entreat them to keep out of
it. When the old faith is gone, and enthusiasm for the Gospel is extinct,
it is no wonder that people seek something else in the way of delight. Lacking
bread, they feed on ashes; rejecting the way of the Lord, they run greedily
in the path of folly." Today this sort of preaching would be branded unethical
for an easy-going Rotarianism takes the place of repentance and Obadiah all
too often gets his orders in the palace of Ahab instead of lining up with
Elijah to call men back to God.

Doubtless Obadiah honored Elijah and respected his
power with God, but one suspects that he felt it a better policy for himself
to be diplomatic and stand in with the government. Today no group of men
is persecuted more than the few prophets who insist on repentance and confession
of sin and the old-time Fire from above. And it is tragic that much of their
persecution comes from Obadiahs, who deem them alarmists and sensationalists
and who prefer a grass-hunting expedition under Ahab to a Carmel experience
with Elijah. We do not defend all the methods and practices of our modern
prophets; some of them give us grief and pain. But the remedy they propose
is the only one that will work, bitter medicine though it may be. They shock
us terribly

Page 12

at times, but we had better be shocked than stupefied. We are weary
with looking for grass with Ahab; God is calling us, though sometimes through
rather rough voices, to halt no longer between two opinions; we shall not
need to look for grass when God sends rain.

Then Elijah met Ahab, who asked, "Art thou he that
troubleth Israel?" This stern old man of God was not the first nor last of
that succession of troublemakers who through the ages have kept nations off
the rocks and God's people from slumbering their time away. We are not speaking
here of that pestiferous, mosquito sort of pulpiteers who live to fight while
they fight to live. But we do mean that noble line of prophets and preachers
who have aroused sanctuary slumberers and given wicked rulers insomnia by
crying aloud and sparing not instead of keeping silent in an evil time. Of
this sort was Samuel, who made the elders tremble at his coming; Jeremiah,
the timid soul whom God made a defenced city, an iron pillar and a brazen
wall; Ezekiel, with his forehead harder than adamant against a sinful nation;
Micah, who wailed as the dragons and mourned as the owls, which must have
been awfully disturbing to the peace; Amos, the country preacher, who horrified
the elite and offended dignified Amaziah, the court preacher; John the Baptist,
who stood by a riverside and made it uncomfortable in the king's palace;
Paul, who exceedingly troubled Philippi and created no small stir in Ephesus
and won the title of a "world upsetter." And what shall we say of Savonarola
and John Knox and Martin Luther and John Wesley and George Whitefield and
Charles G. Finney and Dwight L. Moody and Billy Sunday, who

Page 13

gave no quarter to Satan, saint, or sinner, until men assembled
at Carmel and God answered by fire. For these follow in the steps of Another
Who was accused of perverting the nation in His day, that Divine Disturber
Who makes us restless until we rest in Him.

Elijah answered Ahab's taunting question with a stern
pronouncement, which immediately put the shoe on the right foot: "I have
not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father's house in that ye have forsaken
the commandments of the Lord and thou hast followed Baalim." As we have just
said, there was a sense in which Elijah was a troubler of Israel in that
he stirred them from their complacency; but the real troubler was Ahab and
his sinful house. Someone has said that preachers used to point the finger
at the individual and say, like Nathan to David, "Thou art the man!" But
today too many wave a hand at the audience in general and no one knows just
who is being addressed.

Then Elijah called for a gathering of the priests
of Baal for a dramatic showdown. When they and the people had assembled,
he cried, "How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow
Him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word."
It is time today to draw lines and make man face the issue. Too long have
we dwelt in spiritual half truths, ethical fogs, and moral twilights. Our
church life has mixed with the world, until being a Christian means nothing;
and if some prophet calls for men to declare themselves and challenges believers
to surrender and separation, he is accused of tearing up churches and upsetting
communities. Alas, men have settled on their lees and rested at ease in Zion
and conformed

Page 14

themselves to the court of Ahab until they resent being called
out into the open to show their true colors. Of course, it is an uncomfortable
and disturbing procedure when men have been let alone so long and he who
calls people to it is in for a thankless job; but there can be no revival
until men cease halting between two opinions.

Elijah proposed next that sacrifices be offered to
Baal and to Jehovah; the priests of Baal would call on him and Elijah would
call on God and "the God that answereth by fire, let him be God." We read
that the people answered, "It is well spoken." I do not believe that people
have changed much, and would be willing today to agree to such a test, but
so little fire has been seen lately that men are asking, "Where is the Lord
God of Elijah?" Down through the ages it has ever been thus: the hearts of
men have grown skeptical and disillusioned and doubtful until another Elijah
came along who walked with God and could pray down fire from heaven, and
then revival has come.

And let it never be forgotten that here is the real
test: "The God that answereth by fire, let him be God." Men have made finances
and figures the test, and the church with the most statistics in its favor
has been adjudged most favored by God. Fame has been made the criterion and
publicity has created much that God never approved from heaven. And their
number is legion who, in their Christian experiences, would have it read,
"The God Who answereth by feelings, let Him be God." But the test is FIRE,
supernatural fire, not the strange fire of Nadab and Abihu, but the heavenly
flame of Pentecost. Too many of our meetings can be accounted

Page 15

for on purely natural grounds: we meet and sing and talk and pray
and nothing happens that cannot be explained. We need some meetings that
cannot be accounted for nor be explained away, where men must shake their
heads and say, "We have seen strange things today." Some may attribute it
to new wine, but it was that sort of meeting that added three thousand souls
to the church in a day. The infidel who stood at a burning church and explained
his presence there by saying, "I never saw this church on fire before," would
be found multiplied by thousands if spiritually our assemblies caught on
fire from above. Even fundamentalists do not escape here, for all too often
they have the facts but still lack the Flame. God is not revealed so much
in correct theology; heads may be right and hearts still be wrong. Painted
fire may even be added to touch up the doctrine, but painted fire is not
Pentecost fire, it will not burn.

Think of the many tricks by which the church today
apes the world to attract men and money. The business and financial and social
methods of the age have been brought into the sanctuary, and the cleverness
of man is employed to do the work of God. But the world has us beaten from
the start at that game and God will not honor it. God works from above with
fire from heaven and we put the Gospel to shame by stirring up a fire from
our own sparks. Even the world knows the difference, and men only laugh at
a church trying to beat the world at its own game. One meeting where God
answers by fire is worth all our convocations in the energy of the
flesh.

Elijah and the priests of Baal went ahead with their
test and, of course,

Page 16

there was no answer from the heathen god. Then we read that Elijah
began the demonstration of the true God by repairing the altar of the Lord
that was broken down. Never was there a revival that did not so begin. And
if today God answers from heaven we must begin to repair His broken altars.
Altars of consecration where once we gave ourselves to God and promised to
do His will alone; where we offered Him our talents and time and possessions,
ourselves, but with the years we have kept back part of the price and lied
unto God until it is a wonder we do not drop dead like Ananias and Sapphira;
altars of dedication where we gave our children to God, but later chose our
way for them and denied God; family altars where once we gathered to read
the Word and commit our way unto the Lord, but now abandoned with the silly
excuse that since times have changed, it is no longer practical; altars of
praise and testimony where once the redeemed of the Lord said so, but sin
and worldliness and neglect have closed our lips and stolen our song; altars
of service where once we lived only, always, for the King, but now deserted
because we live for self and none beside, just as if Jesus had never lived,
just as He had never died. Here is our task, to repair these broken altars,
and all our pious dodges and clever substitutes to avoid repentance will
never avail. Stained-glass windows and robed choirs and anthems and banquets
and dramas and eloquence in the pulpit and elegance in the pew have never
fooled God. He demands truth in the inward parts, and heaven will keep silent
and no Fire will ever fall until we approach Him with rebuilt altars in the
name of the Lord.

Page 17

So Elijah prayed, and the Fire fell and consumed
sacrifice, wood, stones, dust, and water, and all the people fell on their
faces and said, "The Lord, he is the God; the Lord, he is the God." I believe
that our own generation, wicked and cynical as it is, would recognize fire
from heaven if there were enough of it today to attract attention. But, alas,
impotent Christians and churches will never bring men and women down on their
faces before God. If we stopped half of our feverish and futile "kingdom
work" without the King and repaired God's altars and sought the old-time
power, we would need no argument to convince an unbelieving world that "the
Lord, he is the God."

It is quite natural that immediately following this
dramatic climax on Carmel, Elijah should say to Ahab, "Get thee up, eat and
drink; for there is sound of abundance of rain." When God's altars are repaired
and the Lord answers by fire and men recognize the true God, the showers
of blessing are on the way. Today we sing:

"Showers of blessing,Showers of blessing we need;Mercy drops 'round us are falling,But for the showers we plead."

But we might have had the showers long ago if we had
met the conditions. God is not reluctant, but we are rebellious and He is
waiting for His altars to be restored. We sing:

"There shall be showers of blessing."

But a cynical world wonders why it is always "shall
be,"

Page 18

something coming which never arrives, and even the church has grown
discouraged and sings it only to save its face. And yet there is nothing
uncertain, indefinite, hit-or-miss, about revival. The road is clearly marked
and it is plain hypocrisy merely to sing about showers of blessing when we
will not pay the price for abundance of rain. We act as though revival were
a matter of chance or whim, a sudden occasional notion on the part of God
with which we have little to do. But God is ever ready to bless His people
when they repair the broken altars and pray for the old-time
fire.

This dramatic chapter closes with a second thrilling
scene on Carmel. Ahab goes to eat and drink and Elijah goes to the mountaintop,
we read, and what a snapshot that gives us of these two characters, a contrast
that appears in every generation. Today men eat and drink, but thank God
for the solitary souls who stay apart to pray. Will you be one who, while
men eat and drink as in the days of Noah, will seek the quiet place alone
with God and pray for showers of blessing? The outlook may seem hopeless
and there may be no sign in the sky, but God keeps His promise and there
will come the cloud like a man's hand and then the rain. May God raise up
in this day of time-serving Obadiahs in Ahab's court separated prophets who,
though men of like passions as we are, can pray down fire from
above!

Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah: "Leave here,
turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. You will
drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food
there.

Go at once to Zarephath in the region of Sidon
and stay there. I have directed a widow there to supply you with food.
So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there
gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, Would you bring me a
little water in a jar so I may have a drink? I KINGS 17:2-4,
9-10

I DO not believe that the ravens would have
fed Elijah anywhere else, nor would the widow woman have appeared anywhere
else except "THERE"." God did not say, "Elijah, ramble around as you please
and I will provide for you." "THERE" was the place of God's will for Elijah
 the place of His Purpose, the place of His Power and the place of
His Provision.

"THERE" was the PLACE OF GOD'S PURPOSE. God has a
"THERE" for you, somewhere He wants you to be, something He wants you to
do. You can never be truly happy elsewhere, nor can you please God anywhere
but "there." You may do lovely things and become a "success," but always
there will be the haunting sense of having chosen life's second
best.

Sir Thomas Lipton, the English sportsman, won many
yachting prizes, but he never could capture the American cup. One day, showing
a friend his glittering collection

Page 20

of trophies, he suddenly said, with a wave of the hand, "And I'd
give them all for the one I didn't get!" So, however many of earth's awards
and crowns we may gain, if we miss the reward of God's approval, the prize
of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, we shall feel at the close of
our day that we would gladly give them all for the one we missed. Woodrow
Wilson spoke of "being defeated by one's secondary successes." Verily, we
are cheated when we choose our own way, whatever we may attain in it, if
we miss the purpose of God.

"THERE" is the place of blessing. When Jacob wandered
from Bethel and trouble descended upon him at Shalem, God commanded him,
"Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell THERE" (Gen. 35:1). Sometimes we go back
to Bethel during the revival but we do not dwell there.

"THERE" is not a particular emotional experience;
it is simply the place of God's will. David served his generation by the
will of God" (Acts 13:36), and in so doing he proved that he was "THERE."
Epaphras prayed that the saints might "stand perfect and complete in all
the will of God" (Col. 4:12), in other words, that they might be "THERE."
Our Lord could say to the Father, "I have glorified thee on the earth: I
have finished the work which thou gavest me to do" (John 17:4). He was always
"THERE"!

God has a Cherith and a Zarephath for you. It may
be across the street, it may be across the sea. Some sing, "I'll go where
you want me to go, dear Lord," but they are not willing to stay where He
wants them to stay. A radio preacher tells of receiving a letter
from

Page 21

a young lady who was sure that she could do great things for the
Lord if she could move to Pittsburgh, but was sure she could do nothing in
the small town where she was. It developed that she refused to work in the
small tasks in her home church because she felt too big for it. We have plenty
of "Pittsburgh Christians," eagles on hummingbird nests, always too big for
where they are.

In the account of the Great Commission, we overlook
the setting: "Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain
where Jesus had appointed them" (Matthew 28:16). They were in the place of
the Divine appointing, therefore they received the Divine appointment. Some
of us have had no commission because we are not "there," at the place of
His appointing.

In the second place, "THERE" WAS THE PLACE OF GOD'S
POWER. I do not believe that the miracle of the ravens and the meal barrel
would have occurred anywhere but "THERE." Men wonder why they never feel
God's power or see any evidences of His working. It is because they are out
of His purpose, not in His will. We say, "What power Elijah had!" but he
had no power in himself, he was simply "THERE," in the place of power. We
might say, "What power that radio has!" "What power that electric light has!"
But they are very frail contraptions, they are simply in the place of power,
connected with the source. When the traffic officer stops you as you drive
down the street, it is not his strength that does it; you could drive over
him. It is his authority that makes you halt; he represents something greater
than himself.

Page 22

So we are nothing in ourselves, but when we are in the place of
God's purpose we have His power, and greater is He that is in us than he
that is in the world.

Men have wondered at the power of George Muller. He
had no power of himself; he was simply "THERE," in the place of God's purpose
for George Muller. Hudson Taylor said he once thought God was looking for
men strong enough to use, but he learned that God was looking for men weak
enough to use. The lad who supplied the loaves and fishes for the feeding
of the multitude would have been nonplussed if you had told him that morning
that he had enough food for several thousand people. He did not know what
he had until Jesus took it and broke it and blessed it and passed it around.
Nor do you know what you have until you give it to the Lord.

Only when we are "THERE," in the place of His purpose,
are we in the place of His power. Samson did a great many remarkable things,
but he never was much; he did not stay "THERE." He may have looked better
after his haircut but he lost his strength. Too many Christians let the world
give them a haircut. One day they carry off the gates of Gaza, but next day
they may be in the lap of Delilah; they do not abide in Christ, they do not
stay "THERE."

There is no place "just as good" as "THERE," the place
of God's purpose. We try to strike bargains with the Lord, offer to do something
else, seek a compromise or substitute. We work terribly hard at something
that may be fine and lovely, but it is not His choice and inwardly we are
rebellious. A minister brother tells of a stubborn youngster in a home
who

Page 23

was told by his mother to sit down. He refused twice, and then
she made him sit down; but he said, "Mother, I may be sitting down but I'm
standing up inside!" So often do we seem to be yielded to God and living
"THERE," but there is inward rebellion. And God rates rebellion as a grievous
thing: "For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft and stubbornness is as
iniquity and idolatry" (I Samuel 15:23).

Finally, "THERE" WAS THE PLACE OF GOD'S PROVISION.
There would have been no bread, no flesh, no meal, for Elijah anywhere but
"THERE." "Where God guides, He provides" is a well-worn proverb but gloriously
true. Notice that God said, "I have commanded the ravens to feed thee "THERE";
"I have commanded a widow woman THERE to sustain thee." Elijah had gone on
ahead and made arrangements. Strange arrangements they were  I doubt
that stranger arrangements ever were made for boarding a preacher! But the
plan worked, as it always does when God is in it. He is responsible for our
upkeep when we follow His directions, but He is not responsible for any expenses
not included in His schedule.

Elijah began his interview with the widow by asking,
like our Lord at the well of Samaria, for a drink of water. You will observe
that when Elijah found this woman, she was engaged at a menial task, gathering
sticks, but before he left she had seen the miraculous. From the menial to
the miraculous! So our Lord found Peter fishing for fish and made him a fisher
of men; found Matthew collecting taxes and made him a Gospel writer. If we
are faithful in the least, God will show us much. Fetching a drink of water
does not

Page 24

cost much, although a cup of water given in His Name shall not
be unrewarded. But it does not test faith, so Elijah asked next for a morsel
of bread and the first cake at that. Now it looked as though there would
be only one cake, so here was a real test for the widow woman. Alas, we give
God the crumbs, not the cake; the scraps and fragments and leftovers of time
and thought and talent and money. Malachi reproved the Jews in his day who
kept the good animals given them for sacrifice and gave the Lord the sick
and crippled. How he might thunder at us today who give God the crumbs from
our tables and eat the cake ourselves!

The widow woman was fearful, but Elijah reassured
her: "Fear not ... for thus saith the Lord ... "God had promised to provide
and that was enough.

"In some way or other, the Lord will provide.It may not be my way, it may not be thy way,And yet in His own way, the Lord will provide."

Of course, God did not fill the barrel, as we Americans
would demand; He simply supplied enough. He has promised to supply our needs,
not our wants (Phil. 4:19). So long as we are in His will, we shall have
health enough, time enough, work enough, money enough to do what He wants
done. Why should we want any more? And He never asks us to do more than we
can do by His grace. He may seem to ask the impossible and we may be sure
that we are going to fail, but if we are willing to fail for God, we won't
fail. Nobody ever failed who was honest with God.

How we do let circumstances blind us to the
all-sufficiency of God!

Page 25

I think of the morning when Elisha's servant must have walked out
on the back porch and discovered an army sent to capture the great prophet.
(In those days God's preachers were such troublemakers that they sent the
militia after them.) The servant was horrified to see soldiers to the right
of him, soldiers to the left of him, soldiers before him, soldiers everywhere.
But Elisha came out calmly, and instead of bothering to look around him,
he looked higher and saw angels to the right of him, angels to the left of
him, angels before him, angels everywhere, for the angels of the Lord were
encamping round about him who feared God to deliver him. No wonder Elisha
could pray for this frightened servant's eyes to be opened that he might
see! And we need such an eye opener today.

Yes, when we are "THERE," in the place of God's purpose,
we are in the place of His power and provision. ARE YOU "THERE"? A little
girl in a Midwestern city came forward one night after I had preached from
this text and whispered in my ear, "I'm here but I'm afraid I'm not THERE."
Many of us are "here," among those present, but we are not "THERE," in the
place of His choosing. We may be "THERE" the moment we resign the right to
our own lives and let Him take control. Do not grow uneasy if guidance does
not come in a moment. What He wants is your yielded will, and the minute
you give Him that, you are "THERE," although it may be some time before He
shows you just where it is geographically.

May I relate to you a chapter out of my own experience?
I began to preach when I was a boy. After

Page 26

four years of preaching, I went away to school and in the period
that followed I became unsettled in my beliefs. I felt, under modernistic
and liberal influences, that I should adapt the Gospel to the modern mind,
which, by the way, is not very modern and not much mind. There came a day
when my ministry failed and I returned to my old country home in the hills.
That winter my father died and I was left with my mother, having only a country
grocery store as our support, and that was robbed and burned to the ground
in the following spring! During those months the Lord spoke to my soul and
led me to see that if I returned to the old Gospel and preached it, He would
clear the track for me. So I renounced the "new approach" and got into the
Cherith and Zarephath of God's will for me. First, I had to return to the
church where I had preached the "new position" and give them the message
God had given me. The way has not always been easy, but I can testify that
God had gone before and made arrangements. I have found "THERE" to be the
place of His abundant power and marvelous provision. The years since that
experience have been one continued story of "meal in a barrel."

I BELIEVE that Timothy was afflicted with
a constitutional timidity. Paul reminds him to let no man despise his youth,
and to the Corinthians he wrote: "Now if Timothy come, see that he may be
among you without fear" (1 Cor. 16:10). He was a splendid young preacher,
with good ancestry and in dead earnest, but he needed to be set on fire.
I know a young preacher who reminds me of Timothy. He is a genuine and promising
Christian, but, somehow, one wants to build a fire within him. If his faith
and his facts had fire he would move mountains.

So Paul advises Timothy to kindle the sacred Flame
within him. Modern Americans in steam-heated apartments miss the meaning
here by not having to rise, as some of us country-bred mortals had to do,
on cold winter mornings to shiver before an old-fashioned fire-place while
we uncovered leftover coals from the night before, applied kindling, and
then blew hard until the flame appeared. Such is the picture here. There
come times in our experiences when the fires of God burn low and we must
stir up the heavenly flame within our hearts.

Page 28

Timothy was not exhorted to stir up himself. It is
not our fire but God's that we are to kindle. The Nadabs and Abihus offer
plenty of strange fire today and there are those who kindle a fire and compass
themselves about with sparks and walk in their own light to their own sorrow
(Isaiah 50:11). What was the "gift of God" in the mind of Paul? It was not
Timothy's ability or his own enthusiasm. It is stated in another verse: "Neglect
not the gift that is in thee which was given thee by the laying on of the
hands of the presbytery" (1 Timothy 4:14). It was the gift of the Spirit
for his peculiar ministry, the supreme qualification for preaching and witnessing
and service. And in application it represents the fire of the Spirit in each
and all of us believers.

Timothy was exhorted to let no man despise his youth.
As a rule, we do not expect much of young preachers. We say, "He'll be fine
after he has finished school," or "After he has experience he will be a power,"
and we forget that the main qualification for young or old, the Holy Spirit,
he may have now as much as he ever will. Without that no preacher can preach
whatever his age or training. And unless he have the Holy Fire, more experience
will but confirm him in carnality. Many a preacher never preached better
than when he began, for he began in the fire of his first love, before the
world and even the church had time to temper his zeal and smother his flame
until he became merely "among those present." Paul recognized the value of
training, because he exhorted Timothy to study to show himself approved unto
God, a workman that needed not to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of
truth.

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He knew the value of experience, for he would have no bishop be
a novice. But, above all that, he would say, "Timothy, stir up the Fire,
don't get in a rut and don't let them make an ordinary preacher out of
you."

What Christians in general, preachers and churches
need most today is to stir the embers of the Holy Fire until the heavenly
zeal consumes them. Our Lord did not say He would spew us out of His mouth
for being too hot but for being lukewarm! Every believer has at least a few
coals in his heart, but usually it is a bed of coals instead of a flame.
When the Gospel is preached and the breath of the Spirit blows on the hearts
you can tell where the fire is, for faces will light up and the glow will
return. But the fire has died down. Iniquity abounds and the love of many
has waxed cold; they have quenched the Spirit and left their first love.
Wet blankets of various sorts have smothered the flame. Many of them feel
hard pressed to keep themselves warm when they ought to be setting others
afire! If for any reason the fire has become coals, stir up the gift of God!
Keep aglow at any cost! No price is too great to pay to be a "burning and
shining light" for Him! Better to go to lengths that may seem absurd to others
to keep the fire blazing!

There are so many things that can smother the fire.
Of course, wilful sin will do it. Our Lord told us that the candle of testimony
may be smothered by the bushel or the bed. The bushel stands for money-making,
the cares of business, the temporal concerns of this life. The bed stands
for luxury, ease, worldly pleasure, the sloth that so enervates the soul.
And most Christian

Page 30

lights are under the bushel or the bed! Some are too busy to shine,
others are too lazy. The test of any interest is this: what effect does it
have on my fire? Does it tone down my zeal? Does it grieve the
Spirit?

Neglect will smother the fire. Let the fire alone
and it will burn low and the ashes will gather. If we neglect the means of
grace, prayer, the Word and holy exercise, we shall soon need a stirring.
And never was it easier to grow slothful and complacent than today. The spirit
of the times is against the man on fire for God as never before. The very
atmosphere is dull, the devil makes our eyelids heavy and fills our minds
with cobwebs. The spirit may be willing but the flesh is weak. It is not
easy to stir oneself to take hold of God. Drop into the average church service
today and you realize the truth of those old lines:

We sleep in the garden while our Lord says in gentle
irony, "Sleep on now and take your rest," but He also adds, "Rise, let us
be going." We need to take ourselves by the back of the neck and shake ourselves
out of our coma and lethargy, cocainized and chloroformed as we are by the
spiritual climate of this ungodly age:

Then, too, others can quench the Spirit and smother
our fire. Every Christian is a contradiction to this old world. He crosses
it at every point. He goes against the grain from beginning to end. From
the day that he is born again until the day that he goes on to be with the
Lord, he must stand against the current of a world always going the other
way. God expects him to be "beside himself," "a fool for Christ's sake,"
"drunk on new wine." If he allows it, men will tone him down, steal the joy
of his salvation, and reduce him to the dreary level of the general average.
If the devil cannot keep us from being saved, he next endeavors to make average
Christians of us, and in this he usually succeeds. He tames the holy recklessness
of God's dare-saints until they sink into the drab pattern of most of us,
"faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null." The devil does not
mind our joining church if we behave like most of those who are already inside.
But when a real, wide-awake Christian comes along, taking the Gospel seriously,
the devil grows alarmed and begins plotting his downfall. He gets plenty
of assistance right in the church, for many church folk do not like to have
their Laodicean complacency upset by these who turn the world upside down.
So they conspire with Satan to turn the young Christian's fever into a chill.
There are always plenty of human wet blankets to smother the zealot's flame,
and they have put out more spiritual fires than have all the skeptics and
infidels. I remember well that when I, as a boy, started out to preach, those
who discouraged me most were not the folk commonly called "sinners" but the
smug circle of religionists at home in this world who cautioned me to take
it easy,

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and reminded me that I should not be righteous
overmuch!

Sometimes one encounters such discouragement most
at home and finds his greatest foes in this matter in his own household.
No wonder our Lord used the strong word "hate" to tell us how much higher
should be our devotion to Him than to the dearest of earth! Throughout His
life, whether saying as a boy in the temple, "Did you not know that I must
be about my Father's business?" or at Cana saying to His mother, "Woman,
what have I to do with thee?" or when His relatives desired to speak to Him
and He said, "Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven,
the same is my brother, and sister, and mother," He always made it clear
that His first obligation was to God and He suffered not even the dearest
of earth to hinder that devotion. Doubtless His relatives would have smothered
His fire if He had allowed it, even as they and His friends thought He was
"out of His mind" (Mark 3:21).

Certainly, fear can choke the fire. Paul says to Timothy
in the very word next to the passage we are considering, "For God has not
given us the spirit of fear; but of power and love and of a sound mind."
The man who hid his talent said, "I was afraid." The fires that fear has
smothered  fear of the past of present or future, fear of others, of
failure, of sickness, of death! Whatever fear you may have, it is not of
God, for He has not given us such a spirit. But He has given us power and
love and a sound mind and these gifts we should stir up! We have not received
the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the spirit of adoption, and we ought
to stir that up! We should stir up the spirit of power,

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for we have been promised power  "Ye shall receive power."
We should stir up love, for perfect love casts out fear. And we should stir
up the spirit of discipline or of a sound mind, that which Matthew Henry
called "a peaceable enjoyment of ourselves," for, said he, "We are ofttimes
discouraged in our way and work by creatures of our own fancy and imagination
which sober thinking would obviate and easily answer." We need to rout the
spectres and hobgoblins of our minds by a sanctified common sense, without
which all other sense is nonsense.

Let us remember that stirring up the gift of God is
our business. God will not do it for us. We must rouse ourselves from our
lethargy and get down to business in prayer and feeding upon the Word and
holy exercise.

"O for a passionate passion for souls, O for a pity that yearns;O for a love that loves even to death, O for a fire that burns!"

It is related that in Scotland years ago, before the
day of matches, the fires had gone out throughout a community. The people
set out looking for someone who had a fire. At last, far up on a hillside,
they found a humble home where the hearthstone glowed with cheery flame.
Soon they were carrying coals here and there to replenish their own blackened
fireplaces. Today there are weary hearts, discouraged souls, needy churches
looking for a soul with a fire, someone who

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has kept aglow in spite of the world, the flesh and the
devil.

What has smothered your fire? Renounce it, yield afresh
to God and stir up His gift within you!

THAT little word "wonderful" has been worn
pretty threadbare in these days. We speak of "a wonderful time," "a wonderful
person," "a wonderful book," and apply the word to a thousand things entirely
unworthy of it. But I would give the word its rightful place as set forth
in God's Word. The prophet Isaiah said, concerning the Lord Jesus Christ,
"His name shall be called Wonderful."

Truly He was wonderful in the way He fulfilled the
many prophecies concerning Him. "In the past God spoke to our ancestors through
the prophets at many times and in various ways" (Hebrews 1:1) spoke to Abraham
and provided a nation through which our Lord should come. Then he spoke to
Jacob and revealed the chosen tribe of the Saviour's ancestry, the tribe
of Judah (Genesis 49:10). There must also be a family, so to Isaiah He made
known that it should be of Jesse. To Micah He whispered the name of the
birthplace, Bethlehem. Through Daniel He made known the time of Jesus' birth
(Daniel 9:25). In Malachi He spoke of the forerunner, John the Baptist, and
in Jonah He set forth a picture of our Lord's resurrection.

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And when the Christ came, He fulfilled to the letter all these
predictions. Truly that is wonderful!

He was wonderful in His birth. He was the earthly
child of a Heavenly Father and the heavenly child of an earthly mother. If
men had arranged His birthplace they might have chosen a palace; God chose
a barn. Men might have prepared a royal crib; God prepared a feed trough.
Men might have provided silken robes; God chose the swaddling cloths of a
poor peasant. Men might have selected choice perfumes and spices; God came
in the malodors of a stable. Think of it! The Prince of Glory couldn't find
room in a Bethlehem boarding house! What a rebuke to our pride that He Who
was so rich became so poor, when we who are so poor pretend to be so
rich!

As a baby, our Lord was made known to shepherds, who
represent the working class; to wise men, who represent the student class;
and to Simeon and Anna, who represent the worshipping class. Since that day
He has been the crown of all true work: "The work of God is to believe on
him whom he has sent" (John 6:29). He has been the object of all true study
for "in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Colossians
2:3). He is the object of all true worship, and one day at His Name every
knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord to the glory of God
the Father. Truly, in all this He is Wonderful!

He was wonderful in His life. With only a few years
to live, at the age of thirty He was still a carpenter. He never was in a
hurry, for He is the First and the Last

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so why should He hurry? He was the Bread of Life, but He went hungry
for forty days. He offered the Water of Life, but He Himself thirsted for
an ordinary drink of plain water. He could still a raging sea or He could
bless little children. He could preach to multitudes and He could also take
time out to talk with a poor woman taken in sin. He wrote no books, but ever
since He lived, the presses have ground out libraries about Him. He founded
no colleges, but the world's scholarship has said, "No man spake like this
man." He led no army, but He has been the spiritual Captain of more soldiers
than ever followed the Caesars and Napoleons. He did not bother with politics,
but He has upset every government that has rejected Him, and He is the Smiting
Stone that will smash the last world empire. He had no money, but all charitable
institutions look back to Him as their inspiration. Ingersoll founded no
orphanages, nor did Tom Pain provide homes for the aged!

Our Lord never married but He attended wedding feasts.
He had no home, but every Christian home bears His name. He was a baby and
sanctified childhood. He was a young man and sanctified youth. He was an
adult and sanctified maturity. But He did not die of old age : He is eternal
and he that lives and believes in Him shall never die.

He was the King of kings but the kings of earth sought
to kill Him. He was the Teacher of all teachers, but the scribes of His day
would have nothing to do with Him. He was the object of all worship, but
the religious people of His day crucified Him. He was the Sinless One, but
it was the sinners who invited Him to dinner.

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He was the Prince of Glory, but it was the common people who heard
Him gladly.

He could stop a funeral procession to raise the dead,
but nobody stopped His funeral procession when He carried His own deathbed
in the form of a cross. He laid aside a crown in glory, but all that earth
gave Him was a diadem of thorns. His hands touched feverish brows and made
the sick well again, but our hands slapped His face until His countenance
was marred. He spat on the ground and made clay that blind eyes might see;
we spat in His face until His eyes could hardly see.

He was wonderful in His death. Condemned by the
authorities of His time, He was murdered outside the city gates as though
His blood might defile Jerusalem. Even nature revolted : the sun would not
shine, an earthquake aroused the dead, and the veil of the temple was rent
from top to bottom. Before Him as He died every type of humanity went by.
Ignorance was there in the Roman soldiers who knew not what they did. Insolence
passed by, wagging its head. Irreverence was there in the people who stood
beholding. And of all that motley throng, the one who was blessed most was
the dying thief who

"Rejoiced to see that fountain in his day; And there may I, though
vile as he,

Wash all my sins away."

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The Lord Jesus Christ was wonderful in His resurrection.
When His body was laid in the grave, Pilot gave orders at the request of
the Pharisees to seal the sepulchre. "Make it as secure as you can" (Matthew
27:65). And they did! Nature made it as secure as she could, for a large
stone was before the sepulchre, but "up from the grave He arose," the angel
of the Lord rolled the stone away and sat upon it. The Roman government made
it as secure as it could and placed its seal upon the grave; but "up from
the grave He arose" to break the seal of Rome as later He broke the back
of Rome and as even later He will smash the last Roman world empire. Unbelief
made it as secure as it could for Pharisaism tried to discredit His resurrection
but "up from the grave He arose" and whenever unbelief thinks it has buried
the truth, the "corpse" always comes to life in the midst of the funeral
to outlive all the pallbearers. Death made it as secure as it could but "up
from the grave He arose" and now He carries the keys of death and hell. The
world, the flesh and the devil conspired to keep Him in the grave but "up
from the grave He arose" that "death might be swallowed up in
victory."

He is wonderful in His present ministry. He is not
a mere memory in a Palestinian tomb. He ever lives to make intercession for
us and if any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
Righteous. He not only arose, He ascended, yet where two or three gather
in His Name He is present. He is not far away but nigh, for "Jesus of Nazareth
passeth by" and "where cross the crowded ways of man" we hear the voice of
the Son of Man.

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Finally, He is wonderful in His power to save. They
called His name Jesus for He should save His people from their sins, and
truly if any man be in Him he is a new creation.

A godly woman married to a sour and cynical sinner
persuaded him one evening to go to revival services in the near-by church.
That night he was gloriously saved. Next morning before breakfast he stood
before the window looking out on the bleak winter landscape. But it was not
bleak to him. He called to his wife, "Come, see how beautiful the whole world
is this morning. It looks as though the very trees are clapping their hands."
And why not? "For you shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace;
the mountains and hills shall break forth before you into singing and all
the trees of the field shall clap their hands" (Isaiah 55:12).

Heaven above is softer blue,Earth around is sweeter green;Something lives in every hueChristless eyes have never seen:Birds with gladder songs oerflow,Flowers with deeper beauties shine,Since I know, as now I know,I am His, and He is mine.

A passenger on one of the great trains going west
was observed to exclaim every few minutes the word "wonderful!" He would
feel the plush on the seats, look out the window, look at the passengers;
and everything he saw drew from him the word "wonderful!" When curiosity
got the better of a fellow passenger and

Page 41

he inquired what all this meant, the man replied, "Until a few
days ago I was blind from my birth. But a great doctor recently gave me my
sight and now everything looks wonderful to me. The landscape, you passengers,
even these seats look wonderful to me."

And when the Great Physician touches our blind eyes
so that we see, does not everything take on a new appearance because we have
seen Him? And shall we not find ourselves singing to His praise?

"Wonderful, wonderful, Jesus is to me:Prince of Peace, Counselor, Mighty God is He;Saving me and keeping me from all sin and shame,He is my Redeemer, praise His Name!"

But he said to them, Unless I see the nail
marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand
into his side, I will not believe.  JOHN
20:25.

I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus."
 GALATIANS 6:17.

"As he is, so are we in this world."  1
JOHN 4:17.

IT is to be expected that the preaching of
the cross should be foolishness to them that perish. God said it (1 Cor.
1:18), and the Calvary message of blood-bought redemption, of living through
One Who died, of being justified by One Who was condemned, of being blessed
by One Who was made a curse, of being saved by One Who could not save Himself
 such a message has always been and will be distasteful to the natural
man.

But we have come to the day when the preaching of
the cross is foolishness not only to the world but to the professing church
as well. It has become foolishness in much of modern preaching where a
"slaughterhouse theology" is held up to ridicule and modern lepers are told
that Abana and Pharpar are as good as Jordan and that Naaman today need not
dip in the fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's
veins.

Not only in preaching but in practice does this hold
true today in churches where thousands expect to reach heaven on the merit
of their own good works, which, if

Page 43

it could be done, would, of course, mean that our Lord need not
have died. They sing about the cross and pay it the tribute of their lips,
but so far as their hope of salvation is concerned, it is just as surely
foolishness to them as to the millions outside the church.

But we go even deeper to say that among Christians
who truly are resting upon the finished work of Christ at Calvary for their
souls' salvation there is a sense in which the preaching of the cross is
still foolishness to them. For there are two aspects of our Lord's work in
His atoning death, and some know the one but are painfully ignorant of the
other. Our Lord bore our sins once for all in His own body on the tree, but
not only were our sins nailed with Him there: our very selves, our old man,
our old nature, all this was so identified with Him that we can truly say,
"I am crucified with Christ" (Galatians 2:20) and "our old man is crucified
with him" (Romans 6:6) and "I am crucified to the world" (Galatians 6:14),
"dead with Christ" (Colossians 2:20). The sinner is dead IN sin, the Saviour
died FOR sin, and the saint is dead TO sin with his Lord, a glorious fact
which he is to make real in actual daily experience as he reckons himself
dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans
6:11). Our Saviour did not die that we might dodge the cross but that we
might die with Him there, and it is possible to rest upon His cross work
for salvation from sin's penalty without experiencing the work of the cross
for salvation from sin's power, so that this part of the preaching of the
cross is still foolishness.

Thomas demanded to see the marks of the cross in the
resurrection Christ before he would believe. Today an

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unbelieving world is looking for the marks of the cross in those
who claim to have died to sin with their Saviour and who profess to live
His resurrection life. But few there are who, like Paul, bear the marks of
the Lord Jesus, the evidences of death to sin and life unto God. Yet as our
Lord is, so are we in this world and nothing will so convince men of our
identification with Him as the marks of His cross. Alas, we strive to impress
them almost every other way. They hear oratory and see cleverness and efficiency
and even earnestness; the old Adam parades under the guise of the Gospel,
and preaching becomes another profession and church work merely another interest,
along with club and community concerns. The carnal man labors overtime "working
FOR Jesus," but the Lord Himself is not seen.

One thinks of those weary disciples trudging toward
Emmaus who recited to the unrecognized Christ, their companion, the crucifixion
story. Then they told Him some of the reports that He had risen and added,
"And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and found
it even so as the women had said : BUT HIM THEY DID NOT SEE" (Luke 24:24).
There is the tragedy of today: men are looking for the resurrection Christ,
the living Christ, and they see us, but Him they see not. They see Him not
in our church services, they see Him not in our sermons, they see Him not
in our lives. We get in His way and use His name to advertise ourselves,
and men see us and turn away sick and disgusted. They are not looking for
us but for Him, and a lot of our feverish haranguing about Him only hides
Him from view.

It is so easy to be orthodox in one's beliefs about
Him

Page 45

and even earnest in one's labors for Him and yet not really make
Him known. Sometimes in advertised places and with much-advertised persons
one has expected to see the Lord and had looked in vain for marks of Calvary.
Ability, enthusiasm, action, statistics, all these have appeared but flesh
uncrucified has spoiled it all. For, no matter how well we know it theoretically,
we are ever in danger of forgetting that the way of the cross cuts across
every plan and purpose and principle of natural will and wisdom, that success
with Him means failure with us, and life with Him death to us. There are
many medals but few scars, and seeking our own crowns we miss
His.

What are the marks of the cross? Not self-inflicted
austerities, asceticism, the rigors of the Middle Ages brought up to date,
neglecting of the body to satisfy the flesh. Let all who get off on that
crazy track get back to Colossians and learn the way of the Lord more perfectly.
Those who labor to produce such stigmata to attract attention to their
saintliness are worse than worldlings. It is not our deadness but His life
that we want to make known, and His risen life is not a gloomy thing. We
die but He lives, and Christ in us is an experience of joy unspeakable and
full of glory. These hypocrites of a sad countenance who appear unto men
to fast have their reward.

The marks of the cross are simply the marks of our
identification with our Lord, death to our own plans and purposes, death
to our own right to our lives, that He might have His way with us and ours.
It does involve self-denial, and although the battle may sometimes rage around
a specific matter, the real issue is

Page 46

not giving up this particular thing and that but renouncing our
claim to ourselves that we may truly say, "Not I but Christ." It has been
said that the cross is simply I crossed out and so it is. That does mean
conflicts and agonies and throes and struggles, but only because we hate
to give up living our own lives. The minute we resign and He takes over,
His life becomes ours.

There will be marks of this cross experience, but
they are glorified by His Presence within. As we grow older in His life,
we recognize the cross marks when we see them. Often they are written on
the countenance. Here is one who abandoned a self-chosen career for a God-chosen
call. There is one who started out earnestly but with a severity and harshness
that had to be burned out in the furnace of affliction. Yonder is another
who mistook his own fervency of spirit for the filling of the Spirit and
learned the difference in no easy fashion. Over there is one who spoke with
tongues of men and angels and understood mysteries but had not love until
he found the more excellent way. Think you that such souls learned their
lesson under a shade tree in a rocking chair? No, they carry the marks but
they also carry Him, and He glorifies the marks of death with the touch of
His life.

So do not play up the negative and hide the positive.
We are dead to sin but that we may be alive unto God; crucified that we may
live. We magnify our burdens instead of our blessings, our fears instead
of faith, and forget that beyond the cross lies the crown. We should yet
be in our sins if the Christ of the cross had not also come out of the grave,
and we shall be

Page 47

dead in experience if we only die to self and live not in
Him.

Thomas knew that our Lord had died. He needed no evidence
of that. He wanted to see the cross marks to be sure that He was alive. Thomases
today demand to see in us the marks of the cross but not for the sake of
the marks; what they are after is to see that He lives in us. Going around
with heavy countenance, letting everybody know that you do not play cards,
dance or attend the theatre is not going to convince Thomas. But if he sees
in you a living Christ Who so meets your need that the world has lost its
charm, he will be constrained to acknowledge Him as Lord and God.

How is it done? Paul lived this crucified, risen life
by the faith of the Son of God (Galatians 2:20). Peter gave up nets and boats,
but it took him three years to give up himself. There must be not merely
the renouncing of things but of self and then an always-looking unto Him
to live His life where we have failed. God reckons us dead with Christ, and
we are to reckon as He reckons and make it real by daily making to die the
doings of the body. But we also live with Him and by the Spirit we daily
take His life for ours, we walk in the Spirit and do not fulfil the lusts
of the flesh.

You are His witness before a world of doubt. Where
are the marks of the Lord Jesus? Do men see in you the evidence that you
have gone with Him the way of Calvary and the open grave and that He has
taken your place? They are not looking for the marks of your convictions,
your cleverness, your character, or even your popularity, but for the marks
of the cross and the Christ. God help you not to fail them.

THE prosperous reign of Solomon was followed
by the apostasy under Rehoboam. You will remember how he listened to the
rash advice of the young men and plunged the country into a course of idolatry.
Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord; they provoked Him to jealousy; they
built high places and images and groves; there were also sodomites in the
land; and Judah did according to all the abominations of the heathen nations
(I Kings 14: 21-24).

It is not surprising that on the heels of such apostasy
Jerusalem should be attacked by Shishak, king of Egypt. We read that he took
away the treasures of the house of the Lord. All over our land today are
hearts and homes and churches once rich with Divine wealth but now ransacked
and barren because Shishak has stolen the treasures of the Lord.

Note one other detail in this account of the invasion
by Shishak. He took away (I Kings 14:26) all the shields of gold which Solomon
had made, and Rehoboam made in their stead brazen shields. Now these golden
shields of Solomon were doubtless beautiful.

They symbolized the prosperity with which God had
blessed His people. But Shishak took them and Rehoboam,

Page 49

to cover his embarrassment, substituted shields of brass, and everyone
must have been reminded of the contrast between his time and the days of
Solomon every time they saw the brazen shields.

We often see the spiritual counterpart of this in
Christian experience. Satan steals our shields of gold and we try to cover
our defeat and hide our chagrin by making in their stead shields of
brass!

At Pentecost the church began with shields of gold.
But that which began in the Spirit tried later to make itself perfect in
the flesh. Constantine embraced Christianity and the church joined hands
with the world. Harnack tells us: "As the proofs of the Spirit and of power
subsided after the beginning of the third century, the extraordinary moral
tension also became relaxed, paving the way gradually for a morality which
was adapted to a worldly life."

The church began to compromise, so as to be less offensive
to an ungodly age. When Thomas Aquinas visited the pope and was being shown
the splendor of the papal treasures, the pontiff remarked, "You will observe
that the church no longer has to say, 'Silver and gold have I none.' " And
Aquinas answered, "Neither can she now say, 'Rise and walk' "! Shishak had
stolen the shields of gold and men were substituting shields of
brass.

The great preachers, prophets, and reformers of church
history were men whom God raised up to restore to the church its shields
of gold. Savonarola, Luther, Knox, Wesley, Fox, Zinzendorf, Moody 
these men God called in times of declension and burdened them with the evils
of their day. While time-serving

Page 50

churchmen rested at ease in Zion and lukewarm believers saw nothing
to be excited about, these seers could not be deceived. They saw through
the sham and veneer and false pretense and vain show and knew full well that
the church was waving shields of brass to hide her embarrassment. They knew
that the golden shields had been stolen and that brass, though it may gleam
and glitter, is only brass. They refused to be satisfied with "second bests"
and stirred the church to recover her lost treasure.

May God raise up another such prophet today! The church,
like Samson of old, has been shorn of power and goes out to shake itself
Sunday morning and night, yet it doesn't realize that the Spirit of the Lord
has departed. There is need of a voice in the wilderness, a preacher who
wears no tags and labels, who is not intimidated by the glare of brass, but
who sees in it only man's substitute for God's gold.

"The good is the enemy of the best." The church is
taken up today with much that is good, but she is not carrying on in the
power of Pentecost and there is no use trying to conceal the fact that Shishak
has substituted his "good" for God's best.

The world is not deceived: they know that we have
been robbed and all our clever tricks do not deceive. There is no use trying
to save our faces. Shishak has taken the shields of gold, our testimony and
our power, and we waste time in activities that may help to hide it when
our greatest need is to confess it and regain what we have lost.

One has only to look at individual churches today
to see the ravages of Shishak. We can appreciate the sexton

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who rang the funeral bell by mistake just before the regular preaching
service. "It makes no difference," he said; "the church is dead anyway."
"Ichabod" might be written over many a sanctuary, for the glory has
departed.

When we say this, we do not have in mind dilapidated
churches with the congregation departed and roof falling in. We used to think
of Sardis in Revelation as being such a church, but we read that it had a
name to be alive but was dead. Ephesus too was busy and active and orthodox,
but had left its first love. In both cases there was much waving of brazen
shields to make up for the shields of gold.

Much church activity today is simply brass trying
to shine like gold. There is sometimes a haunting consciousness that the
fire is strange fire like that of Nadab and Abihu, and not the supernatural
fire from above. The young prophet of Elisha's day did not go on chopping
wood with the handle after the axehead was gone, but there is a lot of frantic
activity today that bespeaks lack of power instead of fulness of power, just
as sometimes a speaker pounds the desk most vigorously when he has least
to say.

It is a sad day for a church when Shishak steals its
shields of gold. Sadder still is its plight if, instead of recognizing its
loss and repenting of its sin and recovering its lost power, it works doubly
hard so that no one will suspect that anything is wrong. But God knows and
even the world detects the difference for, burnish as you will, brass can
never be gold.

Preachers had better take this truth to heart. Shishak
is out to steal the preacher's shield of gold. Sometimes

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he does it with modernism. Sometimes he exchanges comforts and
earthly honors, glittering brazen shields for God's best. More than once
have we seen a preacher castaway who once served God with power, but somewhere
along the road he struck a bargain with Shishak and now his shield is
brass.

Maybe he chose ecclesiastical promotion and trimmed
his message to suit the powers that be. Maybe he allowed a multitude of small
duties to smother the prophetic passion in him and his study became an office.
Maybe he wasted his energies on various small affairs, good in themselves
but to be delegated to others that he might give himself to the ministry
of the Word and prayer.

Our Lord is coming soon and we are to hold fast what we
have that no man take our crown (Rev. 3:11). Satan is clever: if he cannot
entice a consecrated preacher into grosser forms of sin, he sets about to
cheat him out of God's best. He allows him the good: the brother is
allowed to be active and earnest and diligent, but it is brass and not
gold.

I am not so afraid of some preachers drifting into
worldliness or modernism of immorality as I fear that gradually and imperceptibly
they may be snared into accepting something almost as good as God's best
for them. A brazen shield may seem better than no shield at all, but why
accept anything less than gold when gold has been provided?

Christians in general today are continually in danger
from Shishak. How many there are who make out with a second-rate experience,
a "just as good substitute of the devil. How much of our prayer-life
is

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brass instead of gold! We merely read the Bible, if indeed we do
that, instead of feeding upon it. Our witnessing is cheap and tawdry. We
sink to the level of the general average, afraid to be different lest our
friends accuse us as they did our Lord of being beside ourselves. Shishak
steals the joy of our salvation and we try to make out with a false religious
enthusiasm, "pep" instead of power. A vast amount of church work is being
done today by the same kind of energy with which the world carries on its
work. Unconsecrated men and women are transplanted on Sunday from the world
into the church upon the mistaken impression that if they can "put things
over" outside the church, they can do it inside the church.

We have an idea that church work must go on; if not
in the power of the Lord, it must go on anyway, so David hauls the ark on
a cart of his own devising. If Satan has stolen our golden shields, never
mind, we will make brazen shields and go on as before. But we don't go on
as before. Brass shines, but we and the Lord and even the whole world know
that it is not gold.

We are hearing a great deal today about revival. May
God save us from a brass revival! God deliver us from imitation awakenings
that produce no fruits meet for repentance! We pretend that we want revival,
but do not most of us want only a polite and elegant revival that never sees
the axe laid to the trees?

Too often have we witnessed innocuous invitations
that generalized until nobody could possibly feel convicted. These omnibus
invitations brought scores down the aisles in a mere parade that meant no
more

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than an idle gesture. There is too much spreading cold cream on
cancers and dusting off sin with a powder puff. We need a fresh perusal of
Finney's sermon on "How to Preach so as to Convert Nobody."

Let us not live in a fool's paradise. Shishak has
stolen the shields of gold and we get nowhere by carrying shields of brass.
It is often suggested that we never should expose sin in the professing church
because it advertises the faults of believers to the world. Well, we are
not telling the world anything it did not already know!

David had to acknowledge his sin and repent before
the lost joy of salvation was restored. Then and not until then could he
teach transgressors God's ways and win sinners unto Him. Nor can we win them
today until we take the same route that David took. There is nothing to be
gained by trying to hide our embarrassment with brazen shields. Let us return
to God for His best.

THEearly and latter rains were
symbols of God's blessing upon His people. Since they were a sign of His
favor, He withheld them on account of sin. It is not my purpose here to discuss
the dispensational interpretation of the latter rain as it applies to Israel.
I am concerned with the application of our text to the latter rain of revival
upon God's people, why the showers have been withholden.

It is an undeniable fact that we have before us today
the greatest opportunity for living and preaching the Gospel in all history.
The fields are white unto harvest, and I had better be living right now than
at any period in the record of the church. But it is also pitifully true
that at no time have Bible Christians bungled their opportunity more miserably
than today. At no time have believers handled more awkwardly their privileges
than at this time.

We are living in a land which has been graciously
blessed of God but which is now sinking into paganism. The last days and
the perilous times have come. Any man who can hold an open Bible in one hand
and

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a newspaper in the other and yet cannot tell what time it is needs
to hear our Lord's sharp word, "O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face
of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?" (Matthew 16:3).
On the other hand, Christians all over the world are praying for revival.
There are prayer bands and supplication bands praying, "Wilt thou not revive
us again that thy people may rejoice in thee?" "O Lord, revive thy work in
the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember
mercy."

Yet there is no revival. There are localized, sporadic
stirrings in the Body of Christ, as there have always been. But although
God's alarm clock is going off every hour in earthquakes, floods, famines,
droughts, pestilences, wars and rumors of wars, there is no sign of repentance.
Our nation is not at the family altar and the prayer meeting but at the dance
hall and the liquor shop. Revelry, not repentance, is the order of the day.
Sunday after Sunday we sing:

"There shall be showers of blessing;This is the promise of love;There shall be seasons refreshingSent from the Saviour above;There shall be showers of blessing,Precious reviving again;Over the hills and the valleysSound of abundance of rain."

But always we sing, "There shall be showers of blessing";
and it is becoming embarrassing that we keep it in the future tense. Finney
tells in his autobiography how,

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in the days before his conversion, he was asked whether he wanted
the local church to pray for him; and he replied to the effect that he did
not see that it would do any good: they had been praying for years for revival
and had never had that, so he saw no use in their praying for him. Of course,
that was a bitter attitude; but many unbelievers might argue to that effect
today. Where is the revival of which we sing and for which we
pray?

There are reasons why the showers have been withheld:
"Therefore the showers have been withheld ..." For one thing, many Christians
do not expect revival. They argue that the apostasy is on and the days are
as those of Noah, so there will be no awakening. Some have surrendered to
pious defeatism and are sitting with folded hands listening to lectures on
prophetic mysteries, while millions might yet be saved if God's people stirred
themselves to take hold of God. Now, prophetic lectures have their place
and never were more fitting than today; but there is a grievous malady amongst
us affecting thousands who go from meeting to meeting, with notebook and
pencil, taking notes from favorite speakers, absorbing information like sponges,
but not really doing anything about it after they hear it. In Finney's day,
while he was arousing men to the Gospel, the Millerites were assembling on
a mountain top for a return of the Lord, which did not occur. There is, in
some quarters, an attitude that savors more of Miller than of Finney. And
there is a smug and complacent fundamentalism that hides behind walls of
orthodoxy, merely defending the truth but forgetting that the best defensive
is an offensive.

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We are not here merely to hold the fort but to take the fort, to
storm the ramparts of the enemy! If anyone lives on the defensive it should
be the devil, for he has been defeated and we are the victors. Ours is the
winning side, and we are not a beleaguered garrison waiting for the Lord
to come to our relief. Faith is the victory; and the devil will flee if resisted,
so we ought to keep him on the run.

Again, there seems to be no common understanding of
the causes and conditions of revival, no agreement as to how it may be brought
about. We seem to think that it just happens like a thunderstorm and that
we have little to do with antecedent conditions. But even thunderstorms do
not just happen, they have causes; and while revival, like all else, is wrapped
in the sovereignty of God, He has offered to pour out blessing if we meet
certain conditions. Confession of sin, for instance, is required; but we
do not like to bite the dust and own up to God, "Against thee, thee only,
have I sinned." Yet we must, before we can pray, "Restore unto me the joy
of thy salvation." Our text, "Therefore the showers have been withheld, and
there has been no latter rain," is followed by a significant word, "Yet you
have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to blush with shame." How
that describes our hardness today, our stubborn wills! We pretend to repent,
but real repentance that gets under the surface of our shallow and superficial
piety and cracks up our church faces and smashes our obstinate rebellion
is rare indeed. "But then they would flatter him with their mouths, lying
to him with their tongues; their hearts were not loyal to him, they were
not faithful to his covenant" (Psalm 78:36-37).

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Our denominations claim that they want revival, but generally we
want to have a revival and save our face, when the first thing we must lose
is our face. Fallow ground must be broken up, even at the cost of humiliation
and embarrassment. God will not rain showers of blessing on fallow ground,
for that would mean only more briars and weeks. He will not waste His blessings
on ground that has not been prepared, and to prepare the soil of our hearts
means that they must be disturbed and broken up. But, of course, we do not
like to be stirred and agitated nowadays in our churches, so we preserve
a smooth exterior, while underneath are roots of bitterness and hidden sins.
There certainly are definite conditions of revival; and when they are met,
revival will come. But God has not changed the price of revival, nor has
He put any of His blessings on bargain counters at reduced rates.

Another reason why the showers have been withheld
is that there is no unity among God's people, they are not of one accord.
Many have turned aside unto vain jangling (I Timothy 1:5-6) and, "They have
lost connection with the head," having divided into Paulites and Cephasites,
Apollonians and the Christ-party. To illustrate: modernism has a representative
voice on the air today in a nation-wide hook-up. But if sound believers were
allowed a like opportunity, we doubt that they could agree on a representative
man. Then, too, so many are "disciples of a phrase" instead of the Person,
Christ Himself, that they become champions of a pet doctrine instead of witnesses
unto Him. Here is a grievous thing and a hindrance to God's
working.

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We need a Whitefield, a Finney, a Moody, who will
preach the whole scale of Bible truth instead of sawing on one note; who
will proclaim a solid, substantial message of sin black and hell hot and
judgment certain and eternity long and salvation free by grace through faith
in Christ. There is too much back-fence haranguing and hair-splitting, peddling
of knickknacks and sandwiches, when men are dying for the meat of the Word.
We need to hear afresh the pulpit thunders of an Edwards or Knox or Cartwright
or Wesley, when giants of God, fresh from the Cherith of prayer, stood at
the Carmel of judgment and, knowing the terror of the Lord, persuaded men,
the love of Christ constraining them; preaching a dynamite Gospel that brought
down showers of blessing on believers and brought hardened sinners to their
knees in genuine repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ.

That reminds us of another reason for spiritual drought
today: the lost note of condemnation of sin. There is a tendency to paint
a lovely picture of Christ and then say, "There He is, now fall in love with
Him!" But the natural man cannot love Christ nor feel any need of Him until
he faces the fact of sin and his need of a Saviour. We must begin our message
where the Bible begins, with God; where John 3:16 begins, with God; where
Romans begins, with a holy God and a broken law and a guilty race of sinners.
We try to treat the patient when he does not know he is sick. Men do not
see themselves as sinners, so they do not grow sick of sin nor forsake it;
they join our churches on empty professions of faith, carrying their sins
with them.

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We are calling the righteous to repentance.

When our Lord talked with the woman at the well, He
spoke of several matters; but it was when He touched on the sin question
in her life that she said, "I perceive that you are a prophet." It is a mark
of the prophet to make men face sin. Then, when she spoke with her townspeople,
she said, "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did : is this not
the Christ?" It is a mark of the Christ that in His presence men cry, "I
am a sinful man, O Lord." And when her townspeople believed on Him, it was
first for the saying of the woman that He had told her all that she ever
did. It is a mark of Christian testimony that Christ dealt with our sins.
Men must see sin to be sin and themselves to be sinners before they will
want a Saviour. Sins of Christians need to be exposed and condemned, and
Nathan must tell David, "Thou art the man," before there will be a returning
to the Lord and a recovering of the lost joy of salvation, true marks of
a real revival.

Finally, we have lost the note of joy in a prejudice
against emotion. When Philip preached in Samaria, there was a revival followed
by great joy. And what sort of joy is this that does not affect our feelings?
True, feelings are dangerous and not to be unduly emphasized; but man has
intelligence, will, and emotion; and a real experience of God's grace will
affect all three. What would love, music, patriotism, any of life's deep
interests be worth if they did not stir emotion? Certainly life's greatest
experience should stir us as nothing else. True, some Christians begin
with

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a fever and end with a chill; but, because some, with joy, receive
the Word and yet endure for but a while (Matthew 13: 20-21), we should not
discredit that true joy of the Lord that is to remain in us "that our joy
may be full." We have repressed our rejoicing until, in most churches, amens
would be no scarcer if they were ten dollars apiece. Yet, as Finney said,
it is doubtful that we shall have revival until Mr. Wet-Eyes and Mr. Amen
are in the congregation.

These are only a few reasons for spiritual drought
in our day and, therefore have the showers been withheld. Let us "ask the
Lord for rain in the springtime; it is the Lord who sends the thunderstorms.
He gives showers of rain to all people, and plants of the field to
everyone."

THE prophet Elijah towers like a spiritual
Colossus in his day and generation. Although he was a man of like passions
as we are, he moved among the time-serving sycophants of his day like a giant
among pygmies. He could pray down fire or water, whichever was needed at
the time, flames of judgment on Carmel or showers of rain on parched land.
From the day that he burst on the scene to prophesy three years of dry weather
until he went to heaven in a blaze of glory, he lived a colorful and picturesque
drama stranger than any fiction.

Elijah rose like a tower of strength in a weary land.
There never was anything indefinite about him. No dictionary was needed when
he preached. There were no half-tones and vague uncertainties about him.
He never lived in the No Man's Land of clever religious half-truths. He did
not belong to spiritual fogs and moral twilights; his was the solitary grandeur
of those few souls in any age who get their orders from Headquarters, who
speak with authority because they hide themselves at Cherith before showing
themselves at Carmel.

But there came the day with Elijah as there must with
each

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and all of his kind when his fight had been fought, his course
finished, with his faith kept. There came the morning when he, like Enoch
long before him, should be translated and not see death. That amazing scene
when the second man in history to go to heaven without dying left earth for
glory is described sublimely in the second chapter of Second Kings. It opens
with God's rugged prophet walking from Gilgal beside the man he called from
the plow handles to be his successor. Strangely enough, it seems that three
times Elijah tries to shake off his companion Elisha by saying, "The Lord
has sent me to Bethel," "The Lord has sent me to Jericho," "The Lord has
sent me to Jordan." But like Ruth cleaving to Naomi, Elisha would not be
shaken off. The reasons are clear: he did not want to leave his spiritual
father, he wanted to see him translated to heaven; but, above all, he wanted
a double portion of the spirit of Elijah. He was out that day on serious
business and was resolved to see it through.

Along the road that day stood a number of theological
students, sons of the prophets. They knew that great things were to happen
that day. They mentioned it to Elisha: "Do you know that the Lord is going
to take your master from you today?" But you will observe that they only
"stood to view afar off"; it was Elijah and Elisha who went on.

In every age and generation there has been at least
one Elijah who has walked with God in power. And on his heels there has always
come at least one Elisha who wants God's very best, the double portion of
His Spirit. There have always been plenty of prophets' sons,

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good fellows and well-meaning, who have stood by the road while
Elijah and Elisha went by. They have been interested onlookers, have enquired
into the matter, but it is only Elisha who will not be denied, who follows
on in dead earnest, until he sees the glory of God  it is only Elisha
who comes back with the mantle of Elijah.

I am not speaking of some weird and vague experience
of "second blessing." But is a known fact whether we like to admit it or
not, that most of us are like the sons of the prophets: we stand by the roadside
and know that great things are possible, we enquire about them, we stand
to view afar off, but ours is not the mantle that divides Jordan. There are
a few in every age who take seriously our Lord's parables about importunity
in prayer, the woman and the judge, the man who had a friend call at midnight.
The sons of the prophets had much that was good, but Elisha pressed through
to the best. There is a power with God and men that comes to those who will
stop short of nothing less, who wait long before God, not because He is reluctant
but because we are rebellious, who go far with God and walk close to Him,
who will not be put off at Bethel or Jericho.

When Elijah asked his faithful companion what it was
that he desired, Elisha knew what he wanted. He could have asked for many
things, but there was one consuming desire for a double portion of the Spirit.
Would that we today knew what we need most! Not a better pastorate,
or more learning, or more machinery, or more publicity, or a more engaging
personality, but a double portion of the old-time Power. We sing

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about it, but we are willing to do without it. We can take it or
leave it, and so long as we feel that way about it we usually leave
it.

Then came the whirlwind, the horses and chariots of
fire, and Elijah went up while Elisha cried, "My father, my father, the chariot
of Israel and the horsemen thereof!" He spoke the truth for Elijah was worth
more to Israel than a standing army. Better part with all her horsemen and
chariots than with him! Little did Ahab realize when he called Elijah the
troubler of Israel that he was indeed her bulwark. And little does America
know today that godly people and not armies and navies are her best
protection.

Then follows the climax of Elisha's quest for the
double portion of the Spirit. We read that he rent his own clothes and took
up the mantle of Elijah. That holds for us today a blessed lesson. We must
tear up the wrappings of our own self-righteousness if we are to be clothed
from above. Our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and only when we can
see them so and rend our garments can we be clad in His righteousness alone
to stand faultless before the Throne. And not only that, but the believer
who would live and work in the power of God must rend the garments of
self-sufficiency and tear up the vestments of the flesh if he is to go clothed
in the Lord. God will not drop the mantle of His Spirit around the dirty
raiment of our own goodness. We must rend our own clothes if we wear the
garment of God.

Elisha stood by the Jordan, smote the waters with
the mantle and said, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" and the waters parted
for him to go across. We have come today

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to times so dark and drear that millions are asking, "Where is
God?" Some are asking it in irony and unbelief, like those of Jeremiah's
time who sneered, "Where is the Word of the Lord? Let it come now." Some
are asking it in the spirit of Isaiah when he cried, "Oh that thou wouldst
rend the heavens and come down" (Isaiah 64:1). We live in an hour when the
foundations of civilization are crumbling, the night of apostasy is deepening,
lawlessness runs wild to its awful climax, the powers of anti-Christ increase
and abound, and wars and rumors of wars belt the globe. Yet the Church of
God, with the only hope and cure for mankind's sin and misery, rests, for
the most part, at ease in Zion, and we who claim that Name above every name
make mud pies and daisy chains and twiddle our thumbs while a world sweeps
over the brink of disaster. We preach a Gospel that is God's dynamite and
we live firecracker lives. We sing of showers of blessing and the old-time
power and faith, the victory and higher ground, and then we leave it all
in the hymn books and go home. We read that when our Lord held a service
the congregation went home amazed and glorifying God and filled with fear
and saying, "We have seen strange things today" (Luke 5:26). How many, do
you think, go from our meetings today in such a frame of mind? The early
church lived in such power that men durst not join themselves unto them;
they stood in awe of Pentecostal fire. Today the world slaps the church on
the back and indulges in coarse familiarity with the things of God, for they
see little to stun them into silence before the presence of the Lord. Did
we care as we should, we

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would at least be embarrassed to sing so loudly about a power which
even the world knows we do not have. "Where is the Lord God of
Elijah?"

I am afraid that too many of us are like these theological
students who saw Elijah and Elisha go by. They believed theoretically that
Elijah was to be taken, but so weak was their actual faith that they wanted
later to send out a scouting party to look for him lest the Spirit of God
had cast him upon a mountain or into a valley! Here was knowledge without
faith, the same sort that talks and sings today about the great realities
of the Gospel but never actually believes them. We study Sunday-school lessons
about Elijah, but who seeks his mantle? We read and sing about Pentecost,
but who is willing to live as those Christians lived?

So we go on at this poor, dying rate, trying to swim
across Jordans that God would part before us if we smote them with His mantle.
How we do reason among ourselves today, devising ways and means to get across
Jordan! We build bridges, we launch boats, we rush in like fools to ford
it instead of standing still in faith to see God part the waters. We labor
in our might and power, for we are too hurried and too busy to wait upon
the Lord. We read that when Elisha went over Jordan the sons of the prophets
said, "The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha," and they met him and bowed
themselves to the ground before him. Men know real power when they see it
work, but they are not bowing in awe today because they see little that they
cannot explain. Most of our religious activity today is only the work of
the world moved over into

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the church on Sunday. It is the same power that men see all week
in the regular routine; it merely wears a different garb and holds a hymn
book. The strange fire of Nadab and Abihu can be accounted for. Men need
to see God at work.

Let it be observed that, after he crossed Jordan,
Elisha used his power first in healing the city's water supply. It was a
constructive touch and we need to learn that lesson today. There are many
who, if they had the mantle of Elijah, would immediately summon all the reporters
in order to crash the front page. God's power is healing, and certainly the
waters are poisoned today. They do not need sugar but salt, not the sugar
of social gospels and ethical programs but the salt of which our Lord spoke
when He called us the salt of the earth. We are the salt of the earth, mind
you, not the sugar, and our ministry is truly to cleanse and not just to
change the taste.

But on the heels of this incident comes another which
has troubled many, the episode of the children mocking Elisha and their being
torn by the bears. Here, although they were torn and not slain, there certainly
was a destructive touch, and many have wondered what good there could be
in such procedure. Well, it teaches one thing we do well to remember: you
cannot fool with God's man. Even little children could not do it and get
away with it. More than one poor mortal has undertaken to ridicule the minister
of God and put his hand on God's anointed only to reap a bitter
vengeance.

We have read of John McNeill saying once in a church
where he was encountering criticism: "John

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McNeill and God have come to an understanding. Keep your hands
off John McNeill!" Poking fun at God's prophets is dangerous
business.

"Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" We stand before
the Jordan today and wave our wands, but the waters do not divide. The reason
is not hard to find. Few there be of Elisha's sort who will not be stopped
at Gilgal or Jericho but who press on for the double portion. We are not
speaking here of tarrying for a Pentecost that has already come. But we do
know that the men whom God has blessed with His Spirit in unusual power through
the ages have been men in such dead earnest that they would not let the good
keep them from the best. They craved a deeper fellowship with God and found
it through prevailing prayer, while the rest stood by the wayside and curiously
watched them go by. Call it what you will, there is a waiting before God
that we hurried modern mortals do not know, that sends a man back to his
task with the hand of God upon him in such a fashion that waters part before
him which are not moved at our command. It is not that God puts a premium
upon fastings and night-long prayers and tears and austerities of the flesh.
But He does reward a burning desire for His very best that leaves no stone
unturned and follows Elijah to Jordan while others merely watch him go by.
Our Lord Himself certainly lived perfectly in the will of God, yet He found
it necessary to spend nights in prayer. And shall we poor failing mortals
casually snatch from heaven the power that others gained only by fervent
and importunate intercession? It is true that our Father gives liberally
and upbraids not;

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but He keeps His choicest blessings for those who really mean business
and will not stop at the Gilgal of a mild average experience.

It is interesting to note that when Elijah seemed
to be trying to get rid of Elisha, his faithful follower said, "As the Lord
liveth and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee." Later in Elisha's
ministry, when the Shunammite woman comes to him in behalf of her son, he
tries to dispose of the matter by sending Gehazi with his staff, but the
woman says exactly what he said to Elijah: "As the Lord liveth and as thy
soul liveth, I will not leave thee." It is the man who holds on for God's
blessing to whom people will come for a blessing. If you would have needy
souls drawn to you for help, you must first have clung to One Who is
greater.

Men in general and the church in particular are asking,
"Where is God?" Our Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. But
the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show Himself
strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him. Who will
be a candidate for the mantle of Elijah, the double portion of His
Spirit?

I would be outside my province if I came
to you as a Bible teacher and very much so if I came as a specialist in prophecy.
The Holy Spirit has not given to me the teaching gift. God's Word speaks
of would-be teachers who have no business teaching (I Timothy 1:7) and of
learners who long since should have been teachers (Hebrews 5:12). I have
tried to find my place between the Presumptuous Pedagogues in the first verse
and the Pathetic Pupils in the second.

We have with us those who belong to neither of these
classifications but who are teachers indeed. With them I leave the intricate
problems of prophecy. We thank God that while Belshazzar listens today in
vain to Chaldeans and astrologers, there are still a few Daniels who can
read the handwriting on the wall. The world has its experts and prophets
but the Heavenly Hieroglyphics are too much for them and "if all the wiseacres
of earth today were laid in a row they never would reach a conclusion." But
we thank God that there are among us those whom God has gifted and the Spirit
has guided, who have learned from God's sundial that it is later than men
think.

I am concerned with the practical issues that
grow

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out of these profound prophetic truths. "Seeing then that all these
things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be?" In my
part of the country, many have lacked interest in the subject of prophecy
because some who have discoursed so vividly on the tenth verse of this third
chapter of Second Peter have shown up so poorly in the eleventh verse. The
expert in the mystery of prophecy has not always been an example in "what
manner of person."

Throughout the Word of God one thing stands out crystal
clear in this matter of prophecy: wherever the Holy Spirit sets forth some
great prophetic truth, He joins it every time with a practical exhortation
as to what we are to do about it. The subject of prophecy has, of course,
held an attraction for a great many superficial souls with a flair for the
spectacular. Gog and Magog, the 666, the beasts of Revelation, have, indeed
fallen into the hands of too many mere sensationalists who have ranged over
the country with wild and weird charts of their own devising, setting dates
almost as brazenly as ever the Millerites dared to do. But then any good
light will attract a certain number of moths, so we need not be discouraged
by the false to forget the true. Certain it is that no Bible subject holds
more practical implications than the matter of prophecy. "Seeing then that
all these things shall be dissolved," immediately the rejoinder comes, "What
are you going to do about it? What manner of persons ought ye to
be?"

The first truth that grows out of all this is, of
course, the necessity for preparation. "Prepare to meet thy God." "Therefore
be ye also ready: for in such an

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hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh" (Matthew 24:44). A
generation ago, "Prepare to meet thy God" was a favorite text of evangelistic
preachers. Today over the country at large it has been granted an extended
leave of absence. The reason is not hard to find. In many quarters God is
no longer regarded as a personal being; hell is a byword; heaven is a joke
about St. Peter with a bunch of keys and the judgment day is a medieval
superstition. Men no longer believe that they are hastening on to the Great
Accounting. But, for all that, there is still a Judge and a judgment and
an inflexible standard of righteousness that must be met. But, thank God,
it was met long ago in Him Who was made sin for us though He knew no sin
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He Who is coming is
the one and only preparation for His coming. Clad in His righteousness
alone are we faultless to stand before the Throne.

I heard a minister tell how he as a boy tried hard
to weigh one hundred pounds. He could weigh ninety-five and ninety six but
he could not reach the coveted hundred mark. One day he stepped on the scales
and to his astonishment, went way over the mark. He gave a yell of triumph,
but just then he heard a chuckle behind him and looked around to discover
that his older brother had stepped on the scale.

I know something better than that. God had a mark
that I could not reach, but my Elder Brother, the Lord Jesus Christ, did
not merely add His weight to mine; He put Himself in my place and God reckons
me righteous in Him, because as a convicted sinner I received Him as my Saviour
and rest in His finished work

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and perfect righteousness. So it is He Who is coming Who prepares
me for His coming. In the Christ Who came I am ready for the Christ Who will
come.

But "be ye also ready" is not the only message that
grows out of prophecy. And right here one thinks of many, many Christians
whose position is something like this: "Oh, yes, I know that the Lord is
coming. But if one is ready, what more can be done?" Then they bring up the
story of the old moderator of some assembly in New England years ago, when
the celebrated "dark day" plunged thousands into hysteria thinking the judgment
day had arrived. They tell how he asked for the candles to be lit and proceeded
with business, saying, "If the Lord is really coming, we can do no better
than to be found at our duty." Now that is admirable as far as it goes, but
it overlooks something very vital.

The New Testament Christians were not only ready,
they were expectant, hilariously anticipating the Lord's return. And we are
bidden not only to prepare but to look for our Lord. "Looking for and hasting
unto the coming of the day of the Lord"; "Looking for that blessed hope,
and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ."
"Look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh." It is
one thing to be ready for someone to come; it is another thing eagerly to
expect and await the coming of someone. In my pastoral calling, I am sure
that many of my church members were ready for my visits who were not thrilled
with anticipation.

If you grew up at home with a sister, I am sure
you

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recall how that when an ordinary friend called, she was ready but
not particularly excited about it: but when the one of her heart's desire
was expected, you could tell the difference hours ahead of time. The program
of beautification began at least by noon and by the middle of the afternoon
the hands on the clock seem to have stuck, so slowly moved the
hours.

One wonders about these believers who say they are
ready but who act as though it did not matter whether the Lord came or not.
It is evident from the Scriptures that joyful expectancy is an evidence of
readiness.

But while readiness without expectancy is not the
New Testament attitude, there is another position that misses the mark almost
as widely. It is possible to be worked up over the coming of the Lord without
being stirred up about the Lord Who is coming. One is an event, the other
is a Person, and it is the Person Who makes the event. Looking for something
to happen is one thing; looking for Someone to come is another. Academic
speculation about the Program is dry as dust unless there is joyful expectancy
of the Person Who makes the Program. That would be like a bride more interested
in her wedding dress and the wedding event than in the groom himself. Certainly,
the most important thing about the Lord's return is the Lord.

Let us visualize a small-town railroad station at
train time. Inside the little ticket office is the station agent. He is an
authority on the train schedule, he has read up on that, he knows when the
train is due. Out in the station yard is a young bride-to-be who is looking
for her lover to come on the next train. She does not

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know a great deal about the train schedules and the only reason
why she is interested in this schedule is because of him who is coming. The
station agent may be an authority and yet he may be very dull today, because
he is not eagerly expecting anyone on the train. The girl in the station
yard may not be an authority on the schedule but she is so happy that she
can hardly live. If I had to choose between them, I'd rather be the girl
on the platform. But I don't have to choose between them, for the old station
master also may have dear ones coming in on the train, loved ones whose advent
turns the time-table from prose into poetry. And yet it is possible, in this
matter of our Lord's coming, to study the time-table and miss the
Visitor!

Prophetic truth calls us not only to preparation and
expectation but also to purification: "And every man that hath this hope
in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure" (I John 3:3). And along with
that comes the call to separation: "Since everything will be destroyed in
this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and
godly lives " (II Peter 3:11).

In I Corinthians 7:29-31, there is a combination of
prophetic doctrine and practical duty. I have never heard a sermon from that
text, but somebody ought to be preaching about it:

What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From
now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn,
as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy
something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of
the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form
is passing away.

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If this means anything at all, it certainly means
that in these last days, in the Saturday evening of the age, in these perilous
times, in this night of apostasy, with the mystery of lawlessness nearing
its climax, with the flames of judgment already reddening the horizon, we
Bible Christians are called upon to practise what we preach and conduct ourselves
with a special soberness and seriousness in keeping with the urgency and
emergency of the times.

I remember hearing a young missionary relate how that
in her last year of nurse's training, a young doctor asked her: "Do you really
believe that all men who never have heard of Christ are lost?" She answered,
"Yes doctor, I do." Again he asked, "And do you believe that those who have
heard of Him and have not accepted Him are lost?" and she answered, "Yes,
I do." Then with a look of utmost seriousness, he said, "Well, all I have
to say is that if you believe that, you cannot live like the rest of us
do."

If we believe these terrific prophetic truths, then
we cannot live like other men. They that sleep sleep in the night and they
that be drunken are drunken in the night but we who are of the day must be
sober (I Thess. 5:7-8). It is against a prophetic background in Romans that
we are exhorted to cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of
light, to walk honestly, as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not
in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying (notice that strife
and envying, our respectable sins, are in the same company with the low-down
immorality!), but  and here is the climax of that verse that changed
Augustine from a slave of lust to a slave of Christ 

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"put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh,
to fulfil the lusts thereof." Now, here are a positive and a negative: some
put on Christ in a positive act of faith but keep on exposing themselves
wilfully to temptation, making arrangements to sin, flirting with the world,
winking at evil, playing hands with Satan, singing hymns lustily but thinking
lustfully. Much as we believe prophetic truth, too often we have an argument
but not a testimony. We do not live as pilgrims and strangers, we are often
starched and ironed but not washed, our Pilgrim's Progress too often includes
Vanity Fair on its approved itinerary. We let Delilah shave our locks, and
let us remember that while Samson may have looked better after his haircut,
he had no power. If there is any Bible truth that walks hand in hand with
prophecy, it certainly is God's call to holiness, and if we profess the Blessed
Hope we should practise the Blessed Holiness. You will note that the verse
says, "He that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself." It is the blood
of Christ that cleanseth from all sin, but we are also called upon to cleanse
our hands and purify our hearts (James 4:8), for we have the responsibility
of repentance and confession and abstinence from fleshly lusts that war against
the soul.

Along with this, there goes a kindred truth already
indicated in our passage, from Romans 13, where we are admonished not to
walk in strife and envying. In the fifth chapter of First Thessalonians we
have a choice prophetic passage. In verse 2 Paul moves on to bring out of
it a call to comfort, and if we had time we should consider prophecy's message
of consolation. Next, he asks his readers to have due regard and esteem for
God's ministers,

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and there is material for a dozen sermons right there. If some
who claim to be Bible Christians today had carried their doctrine over and
translated it into duty, there would not be so many brokenhearted pastors
who have gone to pieces trying to keep together groups of professing
fundamentalists who remind us of that brand of matches that won't strike
anywhere except on their own box; who write "JESUS ONLY" over their churches
but have "US ONLY" written in their hearts.

But I am concerned especially with Paul's next word:
"And be at peace among yourselves." Prophetic truth makes for pacification.
There is a passage (I Timothy 1:5-7) which needs to be placarded amongst
us today: "The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart
and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have departed from these
and have turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law,
but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently
affirm." We Americans are rather like these Corinthians in our tastes: there
is much emphasis on tongues of men and angels; the gifts of prophecy flourish;
there are many who understand mysteries and knowledge; amazing faith is displayed
in some quarters; much good is bestowed to feed the poor, and some are martyrs
in spirit if not in body. But, for all that, what is this noise I hear over
the land? Is it believers singing together, "Blest be the tie that binds"?
Not every time. Too often it is the noise of sounding brass and clanging
cymbal, the raucous discord of those who have turned aside to vain jangling;
Paulites and Cephasites and Apollonians, with a sprinkling of the Christ
party,

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debating as to which Diotrephes shall have the
pre-eminence.

The marks of carnality in Paul's day were not card
playing, theatregoing and dancing, but envying, strife and divisions (I Cor.
3:3). There are those today who draw back in horror from the first three,
and well they may, but unfortunately some of them are past masters at the
second three. The Holy Spirit knew that discord and division would be the
bane of the church down through the ages, for He warned against that more
than against other evils which have engaged most of our
attention.

One reason why I want the Lord to come is that I may
have the joy of really seeing brethren dwell together in unity. Our prophetic
doctrine has certainly parted company with practical duty on this point.
If we believe that the time is short, and that we are pilgrims together on
the last lap of the journey, it seems to me that our fellowship should be
as sweet as that early comradeship of the Acts of the Apostles. There are
not many of us at most, and we certainly thin out when, forgetting what manner
of Spirit we are of, we occupy ourselves calling down fire on all Samaritans
who do not dot all their i's and cross all their t's according
to our private system.

I have read of two war vessels that met in a fog and,
after firing at each other for hours, discovered, when the fog lifted, that
both flew the same flag!

We are not pleading for unanimity on one hand or for
unification on the the other. We are pleading for unity, the unity of the
Spirit in the bond of peace. The message here in I Thessalonians 5 is: "If
you believe in

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prophecy ... Be at peace among yourselves." In some parts of our
country the fields in springtime are separated by fences visible to the eye.
But in autumn the harvest has grown higher than the fences and the fields
are as one. It is not necessary to tear down all our fences: but we need
revival showers of blessing that will produce a harvest so great that our
fences shall not appear.

Finally, we have a duty to the outside world, for
prophetic truth calls us to EVANGELIZATION. We are to hasten the coming of
the day of God (II Peter 3:12) and we do that by winning the lost to Christ,
for when the elect number is gathered the Lord will come. Our Lord is pictured
throughout the Word as the Great Gatherer and, however orthodox we may be,
if we gather not with Him we scatter abroad (Matthew 12:30).

Certainly, in this matter it is high time to awake
out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed.
It does no good to revel among the clouds of prophetic truth if it stir us
not to practise it on the cobblestones, questing for souls. In an experience
meeting conducted by Mr. Moody, a man boasted of having lived on the Mount
of Transfiguration for fifteen years. Mr. Moody asked, "Have you ever won
a soul to Christ?" When the man answered, "No," Mr. Moody replied, "We don't
want that kind of mountain-top-experience."

Prophetic truth, like all other truth, should be fuel
for the fires of evangelism. The Mystery from above must be lived out amid
the misery here below. Our Lord said, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers
of men." It is evident, then that a true disciple is a
soul-winner.

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It is possible to sit on the shore discussing the signs of the
times when we ought to be driven by the signs of the times to launch out
into the deep and let down our nets for a catch. Dwight L Moody had very
ordinary fishing tackle but, in a day when many were discussing ways and
means, what tackle to use, and where to fish, Moody went fishing with what
he had and outdid them all. The real test of how much we believe of prophetic
truth is this: What are we doing to warn men to flee from the wrath to come?
It is not enough to lament the apostasy so vividly described in the book
of Jude. It is not even enough to build up ourselves in the faith, pray in
the Holy Spirit, keep ourselves in the love of God, and look for the mercy
of the Lord. There is a further duty: "Be merciful to those who doubt; save
others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with
fearhating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh."

It is high time we stirred up ourselves, first, as
Isaiah said, to take hold of God, and then to take hold of others to snatch
them from destruction. I have often thought that one of the most unappreciated
tasks on earth is that of a Pullman porter who must go down that mahogany
lane early in the morning to arouse passengers who are in no mood to be awakened.
But this business of awakening people is a thankless job, whether it apply
to Pullman porters at 6 A.M. or to preachers of the Gospel at
11 A.M. For too many Christians come to church to rest at east
in Zion, while across their faces one can almost read that sign often seen
on hotel room doors: "Please Do Not Disturb."

The power of the Spirit is a stimulant, not a
sedative,

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and Bible believers should appear drunk and not doped. To believe
the solemn truths of prophecy and then make our way complacently through
a world of sin and shame is not merely unfortunate, it is criminal. Said
a dying soldier to a chaplain: "If I believed a tenth of what you claim to
believe, I'd be doing ten times more about it." After all, we do not actually
believe any more than we are willing to put into practise.

It is related that during the reign of Oliver Cromwell
the government ran out of silver coinage. Cromwell sent his men to a cathedral
to see if they could find any silver. They reported: "The only silver we
can find is in the statues of the saints standing in the corners." "Good,"
he replied, "we'll melt down the saints and put them in circulation!" Certainly,
today the need of the hour is that the saints be melted down in revival fires
and put into circulation winning the lost.

God help us to combine prophetic doctrine with practical
duty. "Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner
of persons ought we to be?" Prepared and expectant, purified and separated,
at peace among ourselves, hastening His coming as we witness and work and
win.

MODERNISM would have us believe that Samson
was only a mythical character of Hebrew folklore. But we know that he was
a man mightily used of God  a strange man, an eccentric man, to be
sure. I have thought that the greatest riddle Samson gave to the world was
himself. But, after all, is it not a mystery how God can use any of us human
riddles to His glory?

"How Thou canst think so well of me,And be the God Thou art,Is darkness to my intellect,But sunshine to my heart!"

And what if Samson was peculiar? Someone has said,
"Better a thousand times effective peculiarity than ineffective
ordinariness."

You know the story of Samson's adventure with the
lion (Judges 14:5-6):

Samson went down to Timnah together with his father and mother.
As they approached the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a young lion came roaring
toward him. The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him so that he tore
the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat. But
he told neither his father nor his mother what he had done.

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You will observe in this brief account twin truths,
two parallel statements closely related and full of meaning for us today.
On the one hand, we read of Samson, "And he had nothing in his hand"; on
the other, "And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him."

As a boy, I got the impression from illustrated Bible
stories that Samson was a massive giant about three times the size of an
average man. As a matter of fact, the Word states nothing to indicate that.
Indeed, that was exactly the thing that puzzled Samson's enemies: there was
nothing about him to give the impression of tremendous strength. he was just
an ordinary man separated unto the Lord. Ordinary men separated unto the
Lord have always been a riddle to this world, and men are bewildered trying
to account for the secret of their power. The Spirit of the Lord comes mightily
upon men who go down to Timnah unimpressive in self and with nothing in their
hands.

I am sure that if I were walking to the next town
today and knew that somewhere on the way there was the possibility that a
lion would roar upon me, I would not set out with nothing in my hand. I would
carry the biggest gun available, and even then I would likely change my mind
and not go at all! But Samson started out empty-handed. If there was to be
power to cope with lions it must come from somewhere else and it did. And
the application is this: In the Christian experience the power of the Lord
comes mightily upon those who carry nothing in their hands.

At the very outset of the life in Christ this holds
true. The sinner has nothing in himself to commend him to the mercies of
God. No amount of good works, morality,

Conversion is an empty-handed turning from sin to
the Saviour. There is an old story of the artist who engaged a street beggar
to come to his studio to pose as the prodigal son. The tattered tramp, meanwhile,
got hold of better clothes and went to his appointment so much improved in
appearance that the artist could not use him. He wanted him just as he was.
So must sinners come to Christ. "Just as I am without one plea but that Thy
Blood was shed for me"  that is the approach of
empty-handedness.

But I am concerned chiefly with Christians who are
defeated in spiritual conflict, who have gone down to Timnah and instead
of rending the lion have been rent and grievously wounded. "The devil, as
a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour" (I Peter 5:8),
and hundreds of believers bear the marks of tooth and claw. The reason is
not hard to find. The Spirit of the Lord came not mightily upon them because
they went forth with something in hand, weapons of their own choosing from
a human arsenal, and God did not honor their selfish means but suffered the
lion to tear them.

Christians are defeated in daily living because they
have fought the devil with the weapons of earth; their own resources, will
power, moral stamina. Our Lord vanquished the adversary with three verses
from Deuteronomy.

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Then certainly we should conquer him with the whole Bible! We can
carry nothing in hand that will rend the lions of Timnah. The Spirit must
destroy them with the sword of the Word.

There is misunderstanding here. You will observe that
Gideon and his followers carried no weapon against the Midianites. They held
lamp and pitcher and trumpet, but there was no weapon in hand and their cry
was, "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon." It was the invisible weapon that
prevailed; the Midianites furnished the visible swords when the Lord set
every man's sword against his fellow. Now, the sword of the Spirit is the
Word of God (Ephesians 6:17) but, mind you, it is the sword of the Spirit.
It is not your sword or mine. We cannot wield the Word. All we can do is
so to yield to the indwelling Spirit that He can use His sword. Christians
make the grievous mistake here of trying to handle the sword themselves;
they try wielding instead of yielding! I cannot understand the Word, nor
teach it, nor preach it, nor use it against the adversary. I must go forth
empty-handed, but yielded to the Spirit Who lives in me, confident that when
the lion roars, He Who is greater than he that is in the world will use His
sword. If I go forth carrying even the sword of the Spirit in my own hand
as though I could use it, I shall fail. The Spirit of the Lord must come
mightily upon me and wield His weapon  and His wielding follows my
yielding.

The saints of Revelation 12:11 overcame the devil
by the Blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. There is not
an overcoming testimony in Christians and churches today, because the Spirit
is not

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empowering us; we are fighting with weapons of our own devising.
Sunday-school teachers rush to classes with a quarter in one hand and a quarterly
in the other, unconsecrated, prayerless, and wonder why they are as sounding
brass and clanging cymbal. Preachers get their sermons from some pulpit manual
and, not being converted, are unable to strengthen the brethren. Choirs sing
with artistic skill but without melody in their hearts unto the Lord. There
is much in the hand but nothing in the heart, so there is no testimony and
the sheep are not fed; neither is Satan defeated.

Surely this accounts for so much ineffective preaching
today. One of the hardest lessons for ministers to learn is to die to one's
own gift  popularity, learning, reputation; to be buried as the corn
or wheat; to decrease that He may increase; to be only the friend of the
Bridegroom, rejoicing only in the Bridegroom's voice. Churches make it still
harder for him to learn this lesson, because in the calling of pastors they
enquire first about his education, personality, social gifts, practical ability
 they measure him by what he has in his hand! The enduement of the
Spirit is forgotten or pushed to an unimportant place. Whether or not the
power of the Lord rests mightily upon him is secondary; what has he in his
hand?

It is significant that in II Corinthians 10:10, Paul's
critics said his bodily presence was weak and his speech contemptible. Now,
these are exactly the two points that are made to count for most among ministers
today. If he has a commanding presence, attractive personality, and if he
is a pulpit orator, the vote is unanimous to call him. Yet the greatest preacher
of the early church and,

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next to our Lord, the mightiest messenger of the Gospel of all
time would have failed on both counts! Indeed, he gloried in infirmities
and rejoiced that when he was weak, he was strong. The power of the Lord
rested mightily upon him and he had nothing in his hand!

As at Cana of Galilee, it is only when the natural
wine of our own sufficiency gives out that the supernatural wine is furnished
from above. Consider Moses. If ever a young man seemed qualified for success
was it not he? Had he not grown up in the courts of Egypt? Had he not chosen
to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than enjoy the pleasures
of sin for a season? Yet it was necessary to take a forty-year postgraduate
course with the sand and sheep of Midian before he was seasoned for service.
At the end of that long discipline God appeared, and see what He asks: "What
is that in thine hand?" (Exodus 4;2). What was it? Only a shepherd's rod!
Poor Moses, with his brilliant start and his promising career, has come down
to a shepherd's rod! But that very rod symbolized his humiliation, his failure
in the eyes of the world, the breaking of his self-sufficiency, to which
every man must come before God can use him greatly. Moses had come to the
backside of the desert, and to the mountain of God (Exodus 3:1), and it is
always on the backside of the desert, at the end of self, that we come to
the mountain of God's revelation and call. Poor Moses, once so confident
and impulsive, is now so broken that God must persuade him to return to
Egypt.

And now that he has come to the shepherd's rod, God
asks him to cast even that down, that there may be nothing in his hand. But
that very rod becomes now

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the "rod of God" (Exodus 4:20). It is always thus. There must
come the day when God makes us stand empty-handed before Him, that we
may learn to prevail not by might or by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord
of Hosts. Hudson Taylor said he once thought God was looking for men strong
enough to use but he had learned that God was looking for men weak enough
to use!

How we have ignored this truth of empty-handedness
in the churches! Not only in the calling of preachers but in the choosing
of deacons, of church workers all along the line. The original qualification
of a deacon, "full of the Holy Ghost," is set aside, and social standing,
financial worth, business ability, position in the community  these
weapons in his hand are often the deciding factors. The church itself goes
forward with many things in hand  programs, propaganda, high-pressure
methods, human enthusiasm, prestige, learning, efficiency  but the
Spirit of the Lord does not rest mightily upon it.

It is possible to carry all these in hand yet be defeated,
because we depend upon them and not upon the Spirit. God wants us to drop
them. Some of them He may have us take up again, even as Moses took up the
rod. Some we may never use again. But not until we drop them and stand
empty-handed shall the power of the Lord come mightily upon us.

The only vessel that God can truly fill is an empty
one. It is not the gold or silver vessel that counts but the empty one ever
before Him for His filling. The measure of our fulness is our emptiness.
"If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." And not only

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shall we be filled as we believe, but we shall overflow; from our
innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. Notice that Samson not
only prevailed for himself, but he later gathered honey from the carcass
of the lion for his father and mother. There was an overflowing blessing
to pass on. The day you stand with nothing in your hand, relying on no gift,
no ability, no resource of your own, the Spirit of the Lord shall come mightily
upon you and you shall rend the lion as though it were a kid. Things once
impossible will become easy. Doubts and fears will flee away. And in the
carcasses of the defeated lions there will be the honey of joy for yourself
and others.

This is why God through the ages has used most unpromising
material to His glory, why not many wise, noble, and mighty are called. He
has chosen instruments which we never would have thought of selecting and
has passed by the able, learned, and mighty men who by every human test seemed
to meet the requirements. He is ever looking for men with nothing in their
hands, that no flesh should glory in His Presence. Mind you, this puts no
premium on ignorance and poverty. Empty-handedness does not mean
empty-headedness. A man sent a note to John Wesley, saying, "God does not
need your learning." Wesley replied, "God does not need your ignorance."
But greater than a full head is a full heart and God must fill it. The complement
of a full heart is an empty hand, a realization that we are nothing and have
nothing in ourselves, that our sufficiency is in Him alone.

So these twin truths stand parallel in the life
triumphant: "He had nothing in his hand": "And the Spirit of the
Lord

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came mightily upon him." It was inevitable that we should read
next, "And he rent him [the lion] as he would have rent a kid." There must
be, first, human vacuity, emptiness, nothing of self. Raphael wore a candle
fixed to his forehead while he painted, "to keep himself out of the picture."
Well has Dr. Pace illustrated the word "Christian" with the "ian," meaning
"I am nothing."

"Let our debts be what they may, however great or
small,

So soon as we have nought to pay, our Lord forgives us
all;

'Tis perfect poverty alone that sets the soul at
large,

While we can call one mite our own, we have no full
discharge."

Then heavenly vitality, power from above, will follow next. So
many Christians and churches are not like Samson in this experience at Timnah
but like him later when, deprived of strength, he said, "I will go out as
at other times before and shake myself. And he didn't realize that the Lord
had departed from him" (Judges 16:20). They shake themselves as before; there
is plenty of "Kingdom work"; Sardis has a name of being alive; religious
workers drop exhausted on Sunday nights after much energy of the flesh has
been spent in trying to make the wheels go round. We have gone down to Timnah
with hands full of weapons of our own choosing; having begun in the Spirit
we have sought to perfect ourselves in the flesh. But instead of hands full
of honey, we have torn and bleeding hands and we wring them in defeat. We
must be emptied of ourselves and filled with Him. Then we may move on to
the third

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experience, happy victory; the lion destroyed and honey from the
carcass, sweetness following strength, and hands full of blessing to share
with others.

Human vacuity, heavenly vitality, happy victory 
that is the Divine order. It is the empty hand that God fills with honey.
Go down to Timnah with empty hands and with full hands you shall come
away!

IT is becoming an accepted fact that we are
living in the most insane age of human history. The high pressure and terrific
pace of the times have produced a generation of high-strung, tense neurasthenics,
subsisting to an amazing extent on cold drinks, chewing gum, and aspirin
tablets. Indeed, the fact that America consumed last year four million pounds
of aspirin is a significant straw in the wind.

It is said on good authority that in zoological gardens
monkeys have been driven crazy watching people on the outside of the cages,
so crazy that a rest cure has been necessary. Considering the way we live
nowadays  a way that someone summed up in these words, "Hurry, worry,
bury"  it is not surprising that our antics should drive even the apes
to distraction.

Unhappily, many believers carry their nervous makeup
over into their Christian experience, and, instead of gaining the victory
over it, become introspective neurotics, forever taking their spiritual pulse
and temperature, jabbing their inner selves with morbid proddings, until
their hearts are sick and sore. During the past year I have met more unstrung,
fearful, doubting, defeated Christians than ever before. They move from Bible
conference to Bible conference. They wade through stacks of books on victory,
joy, and peace. They follow

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preachers with pitiful stories of imaginary troubles, vainly
seeking to escape from spectres and hobgoblins of the mind. They chase the
will-o'-the-wisps of fad and ism across swamps of confusion, and flounder
year in and year out in the murky fogs of chronic bewilderment.

There is a very depressing brand of mysticism that
talks a great deal nowadays in holy phraseology, but gives little evidence
of Christian joy and victory. I have observed that those who talk most about
being crucified with Christ are often not so dead to self as those who do
not have so much to say about it. I recall once in a while that some of the
fine old Christian characters of my boyhood days probably had never read
a devotional book and knew little about the different theories of sanctification,
but they had a rugged, sturdy, simple faith and a wholesome spirituality
that would put most of us to shame.

One becomes a little weary with these inlookers who
never can get themselves into just the mood they crave; who emphasize being
dead to sin more than being alive to God, and consequently they never seem
to become successful corpses; who are always trying to crucify themselves
so that they never get around to "Christ liveth in me"; who put their burdens
above their blessings, their faith below their fears; who glory in crosses
of doubtful make, but wear no crown of rejoicing. These talk much for the
"fellowship of his suffering," but we have observed that those who have entered
most truly into that, advertise it least. The whole life of such poor souls
is shot through and through with such a pallor or artificial saintliness
that one recoils from such gloomy piety to say, "Surely this cannot be
that

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hilarious faith of the early church, that new wine of Pentecost,
that victory that could cry out from Roman prisons, 'Rejoice in the Lord
always.' "

We believe that God in offering up His own Son for
us all procured for us a more radiant and healthy life than most of us believers
have. Surely we "have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but
.... the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father" (Romans 8:15).
Yet the spirit of fear which today grips our national life, which throttles
the business world, which is driving the peoples of the earth to arm themselves
to the teeth  this same spirit shows up in sickly Christians and in
perplexed churches.

How often we have been hampered in evangelistic meetings
by having to spend so much time stirring up the church that we had little
opportunity to preach to the unsaved. The church should be in such healthy
condition that it would never need to spend weeks checking it's own symptoms
and doctoring its own troubles, but could occupy its time going after the
lost. Much time is taken in defending our positions and holding our own that
ought to be spent in aggressive, forward action, carrying the war into the
enemy's territory. The devil has seen to it that individual Christians and
churches take so much time treating themselves that they never get around
to attacking him on his own premises.

Now, surely we recognize the need of heart-searching
and taking stock of ourselves, keeping our own vineyards while we look after
the vineyards of others. A periodic visit to the doctor for a physical
examination is a good thing; but to go every day to learn how our

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blood pressure and heart action get along is the way of a neurotic.
So Christians who keep themselves in a morbid state displease God, and waste
time that ought to be spent in objective testimony and service when they
become overconscientious and self-condemnatory.

It is possible to become so afraid that we may get
out of God's will, that in the very fear itself we are already out of His
will! After all, God is our Father and what sort of father would that be
whose child must walk in nervous tension before him? Of course, this does
not excuse wrongdoing. Sin must be confessed and the heart cleansed if fellowship
is to be restored. But the Word itself declares that the very antithesis
of this bondage of fear is the glorious fact that ours is the spirit of adoption
whereby we may nestle in confidence close to the heart of God and call Him,
"Abba, Father."

His Word also tells us, "For God hath not given us
the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (II Timothy
1:7). Ours is the spirit of power, but one never would get that impression
from watching many Christians today. There ought to be that about every believer
which would declare his having come into contact with God, a spirit of victory
and strength, an overcoming might that all hell cannot withstand. The very
boldness of Peter and John was a testimony, as well as what they said, for
we read, "When they saw the boldness ..." (Acts 4:13).

But right here the devil gets in his deceitful work.
We realize, of course, that in ourselves we are nothing, that it is by the
Holy Spirit that we prevail. We dare not offer "strange fire" to the Lord,
and the flesh cannot please Him. But when we surrender all to Him

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and receive the fulness of His Spirit, we have a right to rise
from our knees declaring, 'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens
me" (Phil. 4:13). Now, some are so afraid that they will not be humble, so
afraid that they will work in the energy of the flesh that they never have
liberty. They are afraid to "let go," for fear that they will displease God.
So they live hampered and repressed in the bondage of fear. They are so afraid
of making mistakes that their lives are one big mistake.

We may as well recognize that some mistakes will be
made. The men who have moved the world for God have made mistakes. Peter
and Paul made them, and so have all who followed in their train. That does
not excuse mistakes. They had to be confessed and forgiven. But God knew
the general purpose of their lives and the intent of their hearts, and when
God knows that we are utterly yielded to do His will, He puts the inner state
of the heart and will above occasional blunders. It is better to make errors
walking by faith than to commit the greater sin of never walking by
faith.

We have never been impressed by Paul's conduct when
on trial in Jerusalem (Acts 23:1-11). It compares poorly with the conduct
of our Lord when He was on trial. His opening remarks, his retort to the
high priest, his cleverly setting Pharisees against Sadducees does not seem
to come up to a very high standard. Yet that night the Lord stands by
Paul to cheer and encourage him. That does not condone Paul's behavior on
trial by any means, but it does show that God knew the inner intent and purpose
of Paul's heart to please God and preach the Gospel. God bears mercifully
with

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the man who honestly is committed to His will, and will be patient
with much weakness if we are utterly His. On the other hand, He will accept
no amount of good deeds if the heart is not His. One may do many lovely things
from a selfish purpose and, conversely, one may make many mistakes with a
holy purpose. A sickly fear of making mistakes has kept many a Christian
from living in the spirit of power.

The early Christians started out in the power of the
Holy Spirit and were absolutely invincible. Nothing could stand before them.
Men could not resist the wisdom with which they spoke. It was only in later
years, when the church compromised with the world, that it began to lose
power and to resort to human wisdom and enthusiasm to carry on.

There ought to be about every Christian a sense of
power and triumph. He ought to impress the world as being charged with a
Divine electricity, drunk on heavenly wine. He has no right to cringe through
this world and talk in an apologetic tone. If we have the only answer to
the world's problem, the only cure for its ills, we have a right to speak
with authority and not be cowed by the fear of man. The world had better
cringe, and cringe it will if we call its bluff and meet its bravado with
the courage of God.

We are persuaded that many precious testimonies are
being lost today because of enervating fear. Often a supersensitiveness and
overconscientiousness becomes so fixed in the heart of a well-meaning and
sincere Christian that he mistakes it for a mark of piety and confuses it
with true humility. To distrust self is indeed proper, but when we have committed
all to God, then to go on

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doubting is to doubt God. So Jeremiah needs to be braced up and
bidden not to be afraid of rebellious faces. Ezekiel is given an adamant
face, and Timothy is exhorted not to let anyone despise his youth. For ours
is the spirit of power and Satan dreads that power, so he tricks us with
ruses so clever that we fancy we please God, while in reality we possess
a cowardice that is not humility.

But God has also given us the Spirit of love. "There
is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to
do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love" (I John
4:18). One would have expected that verse to say that he who fears is not
made perfect in faith or in courage, since we usually think of these as being
opposites of fear. But it is "love," because faith worketh by love. Just
as a mother fears nothing when her child is in danger, because she is
overmastered by love, so the Christian fears nothing when love constrains
him. This shifts the entire emphasis in much of our striving to master timidity.
For instance, we may not be able to muster enough courage, but we can have
love enough to cast out fear, for the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts
by the Holy Spirit if we will receive it. So the issue is not, Am I brave
enough? but, Do I love enough?

Ours is also the gift of a sound mind. Matthew Henry
calls it "quietness of mind, a peaceable enjoyment of ourselves, for we are
oftentimes discouraged in our way and work by the creatures of our own fancy
and imagination, which a sober, solid, thinking mind would obviate and would
easily answer." If ever we needed sanctified common sense, it is
today.

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If Satan cannot lead Christians into worldliness,
then he endeavors to contort their faith. Spirituality becomes perverted
into an unwholesome, false mysticism. Feelings triumph over faith, and
oversensitive nerves deceive into all sorts of false conviction and repentance.
Visions are looked for to decide issues that ought to be settled by sanctified
judgment.

Of course, "sound mind" means more here than mere
common sense. It carries the meaning of discipline, self-control, wise
discretion. There is a sound, healthy wholesomeness that honestly and simply
commits all to God and then moves along doing His will up to the light given,
while, of course, through the Word and prayer and all other means of grace,
receiving more light all along. We shall learn as we go to drop things that
we had thought were permissible, and we shall also learn to retain things
that well-meaning advisers would have us drop! If we are living with clear
consciences up to the light given and learning more as we go, there is absolutely
nothing to worry about. No loving earthly father would have his child live
in tense strain, forever afraid of making a mistake, and our heavenly Father
has not called us to a tight-rope walk. Mrs. Jonathan Goforth touched a perplexed
girl on the shoulder and whispered, "Always remember, dear, that God is your
Father," and how we need to learn that and be delivered from the bondage
of fear to the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father!

I am persuaded that Satan is working havoc not only
with the testimony of many Christians, but with their time, talents, even
their health, by making them become concerned over trivial worries that are
not causing God any concern at all.

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The least imperfection becomes magnified by an overworked conscience,
and they wallow in remorse, which becomes a worse sin than the actual offence
over which they worry! For "if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just
to forgive us," and then to grieve about it is to add another sin, the sin
of unbelief!

Let us exercise the gifts of God, power, love, and
a sound mind, for fear is not of God and whatsoever is not of faith is
sin.

THERE are many who do not believe this to
be a century of progress, but no one will deny that it is a century of change.
A cynic has remarked that nothing is permanent except change. From ladies'
hats to legislation, from automobiles to art, from furniture to finances,
styles and customs and conditions change overnight. World events tumble over
each other with barely enough time to happen. A week-old newspaper is as
out of date nowadays as was a month-old paper fifty years ago. Pity the lecturer
on current events! By the time he has prepared his speech and found somewhere
to deliver it his current events will have begun already to breathe the fragrance
of lavender and old lace.

In such a breath-taking age men look here and there
for a point of permanence. Some rely upon financial investments, but money
has been setting a record for a quick getaway. Others seek to endure through
fame, honors, position; but bricks follow bouquets and the famous are soon
the forgotten. Some rely upon friends, but too many friends, like shadows,
follow only in sunny weather and even the best must sometime be called away.
Thousands seek to escape life's boredom through modern fads and isms of many
a shade and hue. Someone has said: "The religion of China is Confucian: the
religion of America is confusion."

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Men wander in a wilderness of cults seeking lasting
satisfaction.

A man who had been a Baptist, Methodist, and a
Presbyterian told his temporary pastor, "I'm planning to join the
Congregationalists." Thoughtfully, the old minister replied, "Well, I don't
think it does any harm to change labels on an empty bottle!" Millions of
"empty bottles" today think to fill themselves by a change of
labels.

A friend of mine gave me a book containing the statements
of faith, or rather of the lack of faith, of many prominent modern writers.
I read it one afternoon and was growing weary of it, when the radio began
to broadcast from somewhere those dear old lines:

"Change and decay in all around I see;

O Thou Who changest not, abide with me!"

I threw down the book and said, "Thank God, I don't
have to read such drivel, for I know the changeless Christ in this changing
world, Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever."

Have you ever thought what a boundless satisfaction
there is for us in those first four words, "Jesus Christ, the same"? I am
sure that many who read this have found along the trail of the years that
in this life things do not stay the same. Perhaps there are some who know
that once your eye was bright and your nerves atingle with the wine of health,
but the years have taken their toll and now when the doctor shakes his head
and pain cuts its furrows, you know that health does not stay the same. Or
maybe a few years ago you were in

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better circumstances: you were meeting your financial obligations
and not wrestling nightly with a nightmare of notes and mortgages; but now
adversity has become a regular boarder at your house and you know that
circumstances do not stay the same.

Again, you have been impressed, doubtless, with the
fickleness of human nature  your own, for instance. You have had your
rare moment when you wanted to build tabernacles and house the vision, but
you have had to descend to the drab and commonplace and you sigh, "Why am
I not always like I am sometimes?" So you grieve over your uncertain nature,
as changeable as a thermometer in March, and you know that does not stay
the same.

Or you may have been made aware in a bitter manner
of the changeableness of others. You have trusted and been disappointed;
your own familiar friend who did eat your bread has lifted his heel against
you. Perhaps you must live or work with someone who can change moods faster
than a chameleon can turn color and you sometimes wish he were not so ideal
at any particular time, if only he were dependably the same all the
time.

More serious still, it may be that years ago you enjoyed
the fellowship of one who meant more than anything else earthly, but there
came the day when as the minister said the old familiar committal and, as
one grave closed, another opened in your heart and you realized as never
before that earthly relationships cannot remain the same.

Since all this is true, what a relief it is to turn
from these changing scenes to Jesus Christ, the same. Here is One Who never
fails the heart that leans on Him for repose.

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Health may fail us but His strength is made perfect in our weakness.
Adversity may crash upon us, but He draws nearer than a brother, and whispers,
"In the world you will have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome
the world." Friends may desert us, so that, like Paul, we may have to say,
"No man stood with me." But we may also say with him in the next verse,
"Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me" (II Timothy 4:16-17). We may have
to say with Jeremiah: "The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that
we have sinned! For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are
dim"; but we may also say with him, "Thou, O Lord, remainest forever; thy
throne from generation to generation" (Lam. 5:16, 17,19). And even when death
draws near He assures us, "I am the resurrection and the life" (John
11:25).

My love is ofttimes low,My joy still ebbs and flows,But peace with Him remains the same,No change my Savior knows.I change, He changes not;The Christ can never die;His love, not mine, the resting-place,His truth, not mine, the tie.

The Word declares that He is Jesus Christ the same
yesterday, today and forever. If we are to appreciate what Jesus Christ the
same today means, we must know something of Jesus Christ the same yesterday.
That truncated Christianity which disregards the pre-incarnation Christ,
the Christ of history, and the Christ of the

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future, and emphasizes only a subjective experience of a Christ
Who need not ever have lived at all is as absurd as it is
impossible.

We need to be careful as to how we speak of Jesus
Christ the same yesterday. Many think of our Lord as though He began to be
only nineteen hundred years ago in Bethlehem. But there is an eternity in
"Jesus Christ the same yesterday," as well as in "Jesus Christ the same forever."
Eternity stands on either side of the Christ of today in Hebrews 13:8. Strictly
speaking, there is no past tense with the Lord Jesus Christ. He Himself used
the eternal present tense in John 8:58: "Before Abraham was, I AM." "In the
beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The
same was in the beginning with God" (John 1:1-2). We need to assert afresh
the eternal pre-existence of our Lord. The yesterday" of Hebrews 13:8 is
without beginning.

But because this truth is infinite and we are finite,
we more readily think of Jesus Christ yesterday as the human Christ Who trod
the roads of Galilee. Critics ridicule our "theories" and insist that they
want to live by facts. Then what will they do with the historic Christ, the
greatest fact of all time? It is amazing how men will boast of "living by
facts" and ignore the preeminent fact of history, the life of our Lord. Consider
Jesus Christ yesterday: born in another man's stable, buried in another man's
tomb; living in a little land about one-fourth the size of Illinois; in His
public ministry never over a hundred miles from home; writing no books, leading
no armies, trusting His truths with a few plain and unpromising disciples;
dying the death of a criminal outside the city walls.

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Yet that life stands alone, the one perfect chapter in all the
annals of time. What He said and did proves Who He is. there is no answer
save Simon Peter's (Matthew 16:16) to the Christ of yesterday.

Here again we need to speak carefully. Jesus Christ
of yesterday did not end in a sepulchre. Christians are not living on a memory.
Our Lord only began to do and teach yesterday (Acts 1:1). How else can you
explain another stupendous fact of history, the Christian Church? A few days
after Calvary the disciples were brokenhearted, in despair. Some of them
went fishing to forget the bitter disappointment. The fair dream had faded;
there was a guarded grave.

But a few days later these disciples were defying
the world with a message of victory. They were not the same men and never
were again. What happened? The Lord Jesus Christ had come from the grave
with a new body, had promised them His Presence, had returned to the Father,
had sent them the Paraclete. No other explanation can account for the early
church, a fact second only to the life of our Lord.

The heroes of faith of the past nineteen centuries
were not living upon a mere memory. Our Lord has been living in the hearts
and working through the heads and hands of man: indwelling Paul, so that
he could say, "Not I, but Christ"; sustaining martyrs through dungeon, fire
and sword; transforming Augustine from a slave of lust into a saint; in Luther
heralding the Reformation; guiding Tyndale's hand in Bible translation; preaching
in earth's far corners through missionaries; evangelizing England through
Wesley and

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America through Moody; healing broken bodies through consecrated
physicians and nurses; ministering to the slums in mission work; teaching
the Word in faithful pulpits; living in millions of ordinary Christian lives;
shining through pain-furrowed faces of invalid saints  in Galilee He
only began to do and to teach!

Jesus Christ yesterday is the Eternal Son from everlasting
with the Father, sharing Him in creation. Jesus Christ yesterday is the Word
made flesh, taking the form of a servant, made sin for us, though He knew
no sin. Jesus Christ yesterday is the risen and glorified Christ, living
His life in millions of lives through nineteen centuries.

He is also Jesus Christ the same today. Some Christians,
like John the Baptist in prison, have grown discouraged because our Lord
is not setting up His kingdom as they expected. Some have begun to wonder
in their hearts, "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?"
It is true that the world is not being converted: that never was our Lord's
purpose. But He is doing exactly what He purposed to do in the present age,
and His program is following the Father's schedule. The blind are seeing,
the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised
up, the poor have the Gospel preached to them. Eyes blinded by the god of
this world are still being opened. Sin's cripples walk in newness of life.
Modern Naamans dip in the fountain filled with blood and lose their leprosy.
Ears are opened to the music of heaven. The dead in trespasses and sins are
quickened to eternal life. And over the wide world the poor hear the
Gospel.

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The Lord Jesus Christ is still the same and blessed is he whosoever
is not offended in Him.

There are many believers today who are actually offended
with the Lord. From dungeons of doubt and discouragement they ask cynical
questions, their hearts are rebellious. The Lord is not doing things as they
expected, and they are offended in Him. Now we know that He is an offence
to Israel (Isaiah 8:14; Romans 9:33); we know that the cross is an offence
to the world (Galatians 5:11; I Cor. 1:23); we know that our Lord was and
is an offence to the Pharisees (Matthew 15: 12) and to the unbelieving Nazarenes
(Matthew 13:57) and to superficial disciples (Matthew 13:21; John 6:61).
But what a sad thing that true disciples should ever be offended because
of unanswered prayer, or adversity, or because He does not follow their schedule!
He has spoken precious truths to us that we should not be offended (John
16:1), and they that love God's Word shall not be offended (Psalm 119:165);
but it is a very prevalent weakness today among Christians in these tragic
times. We need a fresh realization of Jesus Christ the same
today.

He is still doing mighty works and if He is not doing
them in your life, your church, your community, it is because of your unbelief.
The only thing in existence that can limit the power of the Lord Jesus Christ
is our unbelief. He is hindered today by the same things that have always
hindered Him  unbelieving Nazarenes calling Him the carpenter's son
and reducing Him in their thinking to the stature of a common man, and
discouraged Christians letting the dungeon of circumstances becloud His deity.
He is the same as ever,

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but He can mean to us only as much as our faith lets Him
mean.

The eternal Christ is with us today, and wherever
men yield to Him He works as of old. Men ask, Is the day of miracles past
yet? There is not "day" of miracles. Miracles are simply the supernatural
operation of God, and He is timeless  there is no "day" with Him. He
has seen fit to perform different types of miracles to suit His purpose in
different periods of earthly time, but His supernatural power is always the
same, and wherever He regenerates and directs a human heart there you have
a miracle. There is abundant evidence all over the world to a wonder-working
God and to a Christ Who is the same today. There are thousands of lives that
can be accounted for in no other way. The experiences of certain well-known
faith missions, for instance, testify daily to a living Christ and a
prayer-answering God.

But, after all, the proof of Jesus Christ the same
today is to know Him. For those who do not know Him no mere argument is enough.
For those who do know Him no argument is necessary. It is possible to know
Him historically, as a fact of history, or to know Him theologically and
assent intellectually to the doctrines about Him, and yet not know Jesus
Christ the same today. And it is possible to know Him experimentally as Saviour
and yet walk with eyes holden while He travels with us the Emmaus road a
veiled figure. May he open the Scriptures, open your eyes, open your
understanding, as He did for these long ago!

Finally, He is Jesus Christ the same forever. It would
not be enough that He is the same yesterday and today

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if somewhere down the road He should cease to be. But the best
is yet to come. He has promised to be with us always, even unto the end of
the age. And He has promised to return for those who know Him. Later He will
come again to reign over a redeemed earth, and finally He shall triumph over
the last foe and reign forever over a new heaven and a new earth.

It is true that "now we see not yet all things put
under him." Sorrow removed, sickness vanquished, sin finally conquered, death
destroyed  in our actual experiences we see these things not yet. But
amid all that we do not see we do see Him, the Eternal Positive amid earth's
negatives. And He is the pledge of all these things, for what with Him is
possible He is soon to make actual, when the last enemy is destroyed and
He reigns unhindered. Let us not allow the things we see not yet put under
Him hinder us from seeing Him!

So, in this changing day, believers rejoice in a
changeless Christ. He is the same yesterday, and because of Who He was yesterday,
the Son of God dying for the sins of the world, He meets the problem of our
yesterdays, our guilt before a holy God. He is the same today, and because
of Who He is today, our Lord and our Advocate, He meets the problem of our
todays, He directs our lives and pleads our cases before the Father. He is
the same forever, and because He is, He meets the problem of our tomorrows,
He assures us of life eternal and a home with Him.

We must be careful to remember that at the heart of
our faith stands a Person. It is possible to exalt some doctrine above Him
in Whom all the doctrines about Him consist. It is possible to fall into
thinking of Him

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as the centerpiece of a program, a philosophy, a set of principles,
with ourselves His lawyers, instead of thinking of Him as a Living Person,
with ourselves His witnesses. It is possible to lose the reality of His Presence
in abstract theorizing about Him. It is only as we know Him in forgiveness
and fellowship, as we share with Him in sacrifice and suffering and service,
that we become like Him and can lead others to Him. Back of the Bible and
the church and the creeds and the programs and the activities of Christians
stands the Eternal Christ, and we must in our thinking and living and witnessing
give Him the preeminence even over those things which are of His very life.
Our business is to know Him and to make Him known: anything less is useless,
anything more is superfluous.